


Spiraling

by Abbie_Blizzard



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Crack, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Insert, The Mindscape, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28237077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie_Blizzard/pseuds/Abbie_Blizzard
Summary: A 'What If?' scenario where Ino uses her mind-reading abilities to mess with Sasuke Uchiha's life just because she can.I've always thought someone with her skill set could have helped heal Sasuke's trauma. If only she was more mature and little more OP, ya know? She could have had a lot of fun and done some real good for the kid.So, this is what I came up with.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Spiraling

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Oneshot.  
> I DON'T plan on ever updating.  
> Read at your own peril, you have been warned!

I leapt up the stairs, turned the corner, dived into the hallway and stepped into a scene straight from the anime. There was Kisame Hoshigaki, dressed in all his Akatsuki glory, Samehada resting heavily on his shoulder. There was Naruto Uzumaki, petrified in the open doorway of his seedy hotel room, shaking like an orange leaf.  
And finally, there was the infamous Itachi Uchiha, sharingan eyes activated and Akatsuki cloak hiding the lower half of his handsome face and blank expression.  
It was a bit surreal, to be honest.  
I mean I knew what to expect, but still!  
Seeing this scene from a first-person perspective was really messing with my groove…  
Itachi, like the genius he was, immediately noticed my presence and was the first one to speak.  
"It's been a long time, Sasuke." he said, voice deep and unimpressed.  
His thoughts told a different story, however. I caught of whiff of his panic at seeing his little brother and heard his mind race through thoughts of how to turn him away and keep him out the conflict. Then, he caught himself thinking this and redirected his own thoughts back to his master plan of getting my boy to kill him. ‘The time is not right,’ he thought at last, ‘I’m sorry Sasuke.’  
Now was my chance to change history.  
Screw Itachi and his plan!  
I was NOT going to let Sasuke fall prey to the Curse of Hatred!! There was NO WAY my boy was going to absolve him of his guilty conscience while I had a say!!! If Itachi wanted to die so badly, then could man up and do it himself for all I cared.  
Taking stock of the situation before I dove into anything, I catalogued four people in the room: two S-Rank missing-nin working for the Akatsuki, one thirteen-year-old jinchuriki for the nine-tailed fox, and me, a Yamanaka possessing Sasuke Uchiha for his own good. There was an empty hallway to my back, giving me two exits on my left and right. At my front, there was a ten-metre stretch of hall with three-bedroom doors spaced down the left and a dead-end at the end of that. Said dead-end had a cheery window caping off the end, offering any ninja another makeshift exit.  
Uzumaki stood in the open doorway of the second door, sandwiched him between two empty rooms. While Itachi and Kisame stood with their backs to me, blocking off Naruto’s path of escape. Of course, the kid could always through himself out the window. But both Akatsuki members stood within arms reach of him, so I doubted he would be quick enough.  
There was a single civilian manning the reception desk four floors below us and a couple sleeping in a room one hallway to my right.  
I took note to not accidentally kill them in the collateral (Because I was such a nice person)  
‘Alright,’ I thought, ‘Let’s start by introducing myself!’  
"Naruto Uzumaki," I nodded Sasuke's head casually at the frozen blonde, then directed another nod to the shark man, "Kisame Hoshigaki." Savouring the moment, I slowly met Itachi's sharingan with my own, careful to keep Sasuke’s face blank and void of emotion.  
"Itachi Uchiha."  
There was no point referring to him as my brother. He had lost that right the moment he trapped Sasuke in the Tsukuyomi when they were thirteen and seven respectively.  
No, the subject of my boy’s hatred was just a teenager that shared a blood relation to him and nothing more. If he wanted to earn the right back to address Sasuke as such, then he would have to change his plan for the kid and accept defeat.  
"I, itachi... Uchiha?" Uzumaki stuttered, utterly terrified.  
There was a moment where nobody moved and I toyed with the idea that we were having the ninja version of a Mexican stand-off. All we were missing was a stray tumbleweed and the twang of a guitar.  
Sadly, the moment ended much too quickly for my liking when Kisame lowered his hand from Samehada's hilt and said, "Well, a sharingan," Pointedly staring at my eyes, "And he looks an awful lot like you... Itachi, who is this kid?"  
Before the older Uchiha could speak, I stole his thunder and answered, "I'm his kid brother, didn't you know?"  
Kisame made a low "Hm?" noise, seeming genuinely intrigued.  
"That's strange," he said, "Cuz the way I heard it, the whole Uchiha Clan was wiped out by you."  
The 'you' in question here was obviously Itachi, as that was what the older Uchiha was infamous for. Never mind the fact the ex-brother had had help from the presumed dead, Obito Uchiha posing as Sasuke’s second reincarnation, Madara Uchiha.  
Choosing to ignore the shark man's far too dramatic announcement, I folded my arms and lent against the wall, casual as can be. All without breaking eye contact with the other pair of sharingan in the room.  
"They are," I said, "The only two left are me and him. I thought you of all people would know that, Hoshigaki?"  
The corner of my lip curled slightly in cruel amusement at his blank look, "Oh? You didn't know, did you." I shook my head in mock disappointment, "And here I thought you were the type to see through lies."  
Itachi fully turned around to face me at that comment. He had an irritated look in his eyes that just screamed, ‘What do you think you're doing?’  
The curl of my lips turned into a full-blown smirk then.  
"Sorry, am I interrupting something?" I asked.  
The look the two Akatsuki members gave me was an obvious, "Yes." But I pretended not to notice and shrugged in mock apology.  
"My bad," I said, not meaning it, "I just stopped by to let Itachi know I plan on letting Orochimaru-Sama use me as his next vessel." I quickly held up a hand to silence their opening mouths, "And before you ask, No. I am not doing so in some misguided attempt to gain power to defeat you, brother."  
At my declaration, a physical tension filled the hallway.  
Kisame was eyeing Itachi warily, unsure of what we were talking about but concerned about his partner's reaction none the less. Naruto was staring at me with a gobsmacked expression on his face. The poor soul couldn't decide whether to be miffed his rival had ignored him or whether to butt his big head into the conversation like the nosy brat he was. As for Sasuke’s ex-brother, his eyes were narrowed at me and only me.  
Good!  
He owed Sasuke his full attention.  
If nothing else, then as the ruiner of his happy-go-lucky life. It would have happened anyway, sure. But that was Black Zetsu’s job, not his. There was no need for him to have stolen the origin of all evil in this world’s thunder!!  
That was just rude.  
Ever so slowly, Itachi raised a single eyebrow in the Uchiha way of saying, "Prove. It.”  
Just as slowly, I lifted my hand to my Uchiha trademark high collar and pulled it down my left shoulder. Clear as day, Orochimaru's curse mark stood stark black against my white skin.  
I tilted my head ever so slightly as if to say, "Proof enough for you?"  
Now the ball was in Itachi's court.  
As far as I could see, he had four options available to him at this very moment.  
One- He takes Naruto.  
Two- He confronts me.  
Three- Do both  
Or four- Do neither.  
Judging by the fact the double agent had already forewarned Jiraiya of his ward’s kidnapping attempt and was currently stalling for the Sannin’s "miraculous" arrival, option one wasn't going to happen.  
Option two probably wasn't going to happen either.  
I mean yes, he could whip out his Susanno and use its totaska blade to remove the seal right now. But there would be no point, as Sasuke could simply go back to Orochimaru and the snake would happily give him a new one.  
The Uchiha could torture his ex-brother inside the Tsukuyomi again. But I was betting he was smart enough to know that would only strengthen my boy’s resolve further. If only so he could be spiteful till the bitter end.  
Then again, Itachi could always torture me for tortures' sake. He had to keep up that 'I'm Your Evil Brother' persona after all.  
On the other hand, the teen could always use Shisui's kotoamatsukami to forcibly redirect his ex-sibling’s course like he planned to do in Shippuden. Except, I was pretty sure he didn't have it on him right now and thus, couldn't use it on me.  
Itachi wasn't going to go with option three because Naruto.  
So really, all that left him with was option four- Do Neither.  
With that in mind, I refolded my arms against my chest and let the fabric of my shirt shift back into place at a snail's pace, as if to say, "Your move."  
The older Uchiha's eyebrows furrowed.  
To be honest, I felt quite smug at getting a rise out of his stoic cover. It wasn't everyday one got to stump a genius prodigy with their bizarre behaviour!  
“ALRIGHT! THAT’S IT!!!” Naruto suddenly yelled.  
We all turned to watch as he brought his hands together in the tiger seal and began leeching out bucket loads of Kurama's chakra. "Ninja Art: Summoning-" he cried.  
"Too slow!" Kisame sing-songed as he cut through the ozone cloud of fox chakra, absorbing it using Samehada in an instant.  
The blond’s gobsmacked look was priceless. I kinda wished I'd brought a camera.  
"Sorry kid," Kisame grinned, all pointy teeth. "My blade, Shark Skin, cuts through chakra and devours it."  
The way he crooned out 'devours' sent a shiver down my spine and I wondered how his vocal cords could manage to sound that low and growly... Was it a jutsu of his??  
"We don't need the hassle of this kid using any more jutsu of his," he continued and we all stood around and let him finish his little speech.  
"Forget the legs! We outta start off with those arms of his."  
Uzumaki was one more threat away from peeing his pants.  
If I wasn't too busy trying not to laugh and break my cover, I might've intervened… Actually, why not intervene? That might spice things up a bit!  
Pushing of the wall, I sighed loudly in mock impatience and made a shooing gesture at Naruto.  
"Seriously?" I asked, keeping my voice apathetic, "There's no need for overkill, Kisame. Just knock the kid out and be done with it already."  
To add the icing on the cake, I deactivated my sharingan just to prove how unbothered I was about the whole thing. I needed to prove Sasuke had raced all the way over here just to tell Itachi he was going to commit suicide (So to speak)  
NOT because his reincarnated brother needed help escaping certain doom.  
Don't even suggest it!!!  
The ‘too cool for school Uchiha’ liked to think he was above that kind of thing and I had a reputation to uphold. Even if that reputation was a stupid one…  
The knuckle-head ninja attempted to access his chakra again like a dumbass and scrunched his face up. He looked a bit like he was desperately trying to pass a stool instead of performing a jutsu.  
"You're wasting your time," Kisame sing-songed again. He raised Samehada above his head and then brought the blade down with a whoosh!  
Meanwhile, my blood relation was eyeing me with a mix of concern and confusion. I could hear his mind trying to figure out where his ex-brother’s drastic change in personality had come from. He was running through all the events of Sasuke’s life up until this point and trying to psychoanalyse if any of them warranted such a change in behaviour.  
I found it interesting that Itachi had been able to obtain so much information on my boy’s movements, but not exactly surprised. The dude was obsessed with him after all.  
Of course, he was keeping close tabs on him!  
If only so he could micro-manage Sasuke’s actions from afar…  
I sent him a look that told him I thought he was stalling for time and his red eyes squinted even further.  
But before his mind could concluded that Sasuke was possessed, a human-sized armoured toad appeared in a puff of smoke and blocked Samehada's impending strike.  
‘Saved by the bell!’  
Now it was Kisame's turn to look gobsmacked and Naruto's turn to act smug.  
Two seconds later, a second cloud materialised behind the blonde and Jiraya the Toad Sage appeared with an unconscious woman slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  
"You two don't know me at all, do you? Should have done your homework," he said, sounding inappropriately goofy. "Jiraya the Toad Sage falls victim to no woman's charm! Rare beauties drop for ME like blossoms in a store!! It isn't in my nature to be duped by the whiles of women. When you reach the stature I have, THE LADIES KNEEL AND WORSHIP! AT. YOUR. AWESOMENESS!!!"  
He struck a heroic pose and grinned from ear to ear, imagining a round of applause.  
I looked to Itachi, who looked to Kisame, who looked to Naruto, who stared wide-eyed at Jiriya. There was a brief moment where I wondered if I should actually clap but dropped the idea as everyone else shot the old geezer a mix of disgusted looks.  
Uzumaki (Quickly forgetting he was currently in a life or death situation) yelled, "ARH!!! DON'T GIVE ME THAT! ONE WINK FROM A PRETTY GIRL AND YOU TURNED INTO A MOUNTAIN OF MUSH!!!" He pointed an accusing finger at the man and shouted even louder, "YOU FELL FOR IT LIKE A TON OF BRICKS, PERVY-SAGE!!!"  
Looking a tad sheepish, though not sheepish enough to be frank, Jiriya rubbed the back of his head and spoke through clenched teeth, "I would rather you not call me that infront of people..."  
"ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME!?" Naruto screeched, "WE'VE GOT WORSE THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT THAN WHAT THESE PEOPLE THINK OF YOU! GET WITH IT, PERVY-SAGE!!!"  
Jiraya, like the giant toddler he was, replied by yelling equally as loudly, "DAMN YOU! DIDN'T I JUST SAY NOT TO CALL ME THAT!?!"  
Kisame was openly laughing at them now and Itachi had abandoned our mini stare off to send them a condescending look that said, "Really?"  
As for me, I could no longer hold back my amusement and let slip a quiet chuckle. Naturally, Itachi's keen ears heard me and his head snapped back around to pin me with a withering look.  
I promptly shut up.  
Then I felt incredulous that I'd automatically obeyed his wordless instruction and scowled for all I was worth.  
Who was he to tell me what to do? He'd lost that right eons ago and we both knew it!  
"Hehehe, whatever name you go by, Master Jiriya, I must say you're something of a disappointment," Hoshigaki chuckled, "You're a lecherous old man with the disposition of a child. It's almost impossible to believe you are one of the legendary Sannin."  
"Oof, roasted," I said.  
Nobody heard me that time as Naruto drowned out my voice yelling, "WHAAA!? YOU, YOU ALREADY KNOW WHO HE IS!??" in a squeaky high voice that grated on my ears.  
"Aaaah..." I could visibly see the cogs turning in Jiriya's head as he low-key panicked. "Don't be fooled by appearances. Or, you know, anything this little squirt might say, haha...uh," he trailed of uncertainly.  
I winced for him.  
What kind of half-assed cover up was that anyway?!  
Everyone in this hallway already knew he was Jiriya the Toad Sage. The dude had literally introduced himself as such when he entered the fray!! Just what did he hope to achieve by denying it now???  
Honestly, he was such a moron.  
"So, you somehow managed to release the Genjutsu we cast on her, aye?" Hoshigaki crooned as if he was surprised.  
I scoffed, "Obviously."  
For a split second, I thought I saw Itachi's eyebrow twitch and thought I sensed amusement. But it was gone too quickly for me to properly interpret.  
While we all continued to stand around like statues, the pervy-sage took the time to lift the random girl off his shoulder and propped her against the wall in a sitting position. From where I stood on the opposite side of the hall, the black-haired woman looked a little gaunt and grey. I would have said she was dead instead of unconscious if I couldn’t see here chest rising and falling shallowly.  
"What kind of coward would do something like that?" Jiriya said, rising to his full height, goofy persona gone. "Using his sharingan to afflict an illusion jutsu on an innocent woman!" He pierced Itachi with a cold gaze, "All inorder to separate Naruto and me."  
If I thought I could get away with rolling my eyes, I would have.  
With absolutely no shame, the geezer continued his overdramatic performance and announced, "I know that he's the one you're really after!" Like it was some big revelation.  
Clearly, he was fishing for information.  
It was a classic tactic and one the two world-renowned spies really should have seen coming. Naruto didn't though and he gasped in that over-the-top manor of his, staggering back like he'd been physically slapped.  
"That explains how Kakashi knew..." Itachi mumbled very clearly.  
So much so in fact, I wondered why he was bothering to mumble at all? If he wanted everybody to hear him, then there was no point pretending otherwise.  
"Now I understand," he continued, "He learned it from you."  
This time the 'you' in that sentence referred to Jiriya.  
Naruto and Kisame both shot the old timer a look of surprise and again, I wished I'd brought a camera.  
By now, we had reached the point in the anime where Itachi said the famous lines, "You're right. Naruto is the prize the Akatsuki are after and we will have him." All while subtly letting the sage know of the hidden organisation's future plans.  
All in all, I'd say it was a genius why to pass on a secret message... If his long-time partner and S-Rank spy wasn't standing in the room too.  
If that happened again, the shark man would have a reason to be suspicious of Itachi's actions and report it too Pain, who would report it too Obito.  
We did not need the third Uchiha butting his head into this, so I took it upon myself to intervene and save Itachi's ungrateful ass.  
"If you want him, then you can have him," I said.  
Everybody turned their heads to stare at me.  
Naruto incredulously.  
Jiriya shocked.  
Kisame baffled.  
And Itachi with a calculated look in his eyes.  
I knew I wasn't acting like the real Sasuke anymore so I reckoned it was time to bail while the going was good. Any second now the forgotten toad would de-summon and burst into a ball of smoke. All I had to do was stall until that moment and then help Naruto escape.  
"What? Don't look at me like that," I said defensively, "It's no secret everyone hates him for what he is. Nobody will care if you take him off our hands now."  
"SASUKE-TEME!!!" Said burden yelled, rightfully outraged.  
I 'hn'ed at him in that classic Uchiha way and raised my chin at him in dismissal.  
Any minute now... Aaaaany minute.... NOW!  
In a flash, the toad popped into a cloud and the hallway was temporarily filled with a smoke screen.  
Not wasting a second, I shunshined as fast as I could behind Naruto, ran through the hand signs for Chidori and blew a hole in the floor with the lightning jutsu. "AAAAAAaaaaa...." The knuckle-head's scream grew fainter and fainter as he fell through the multi-floor hole I'd blasted beneath his feet, far away from the rest of us.  
In the next second, Kisame dispersed the cloud using Samehada and launched himself at Jiriya, engaging him in heated battle. At the same time, Itachi shunshined infront of me and kicked straight at my ribs.  
It all happened so quickly, I hardly had time to react as I flew across the hall and slammed into the window, cracking the glass. Before I could fall however, Itachi flickered straight into my personal bubble and wrapped a graceful hand around my slender throat.  
Instinctively, I locked my eyes shut and sent a trickle of sticky chakra to the edge of my eyelids to forcibly glue them closed.  
"That's... Gonna... Bruise..." I wheezed cheekily.  
What went unacknowledged in that statement was the massive waves of killing intent being hurled in my direction. Nor the threatening aura and cold look audibly plastered across the teen’s perfectly sculptured face.  
Without warning, the older Uchiha violently pulled my body forward and smashed it back into the window. I cried out in shock as the glass shattered and hundreds of sharp shards imbedded themselves into my back like needles!!  
"Open your eyes," Itachi ordered.  
Barely able to think through the pain at this point, it took all my self-control to hold onto Sasuke’s body and whisper furiously, "Not a... Chance..."  
"So be it."  
Suddenly, I felt foreign chakra entering my system and cringed in horror as the compulsion to open my eyes took root. I tried desperately to resist. Honestly, I did! But the Genjutsu was too strong to counter without the sharingan and my boy’s conscience was slowly reawakening, inching me out bit by bit!  
Before I knew it, my chakra was slipping from my eye lids against my will and Sasuke's eyes were fluttering open.  
"No... Stop... STOP!" I cried, trying desperately to wriggle free.  
But Itachi couldn't afford to show his little brother mercy right now and I caught myself staring straight into his Mangekyou Sharingan.  
The fear in my eyes must have been palpable because for a single moment, the ex-brother hesitated. I took this final opportunity to beg, "Don't send me down the path of hatred, brother. Please! You know it will destroy me!! This isn’t what I want!!!"  
There was no denying the look of utter sadness in the teen’s eyes.  
I didn’t need to read his mind to know he was struggling to convince himself this was for the best. Sadly, his resolve hardened and my heart sank as he activated the ability in his left eye. "Tsukuyomi,” he said, voice filled with an unspoken apology.  
Immediately, I was forcibly expelled from Sasuke's body and slammed back into my own.  
I opened my own eyes to see blood trickling down my nose and felt a pervading numbness spreading through my veins.  
"Shikamaru!?" I cried.  
A shuffle and a thump later and he was by my side, checking me over from top to bottom with concern swarming his mind. "What's wrong? What happened? Why are you bleeding?!" His rapid-fire questions flew right over my head as the edges of my vision darkened. Everything hurt, my body felt heavy, my head was pounding and my world was turning on its axis.  
The last thing I remember thinking before falling into my teammates arms was a broken hearted, ‘Sasuke, I'm so sorry...

\---

I lay in bed for two weeks slowly recovering from the transferred beating my body had sustained. That’s what I got for entering Sasuke’s body through the Mind Gate instead of the Soul Gate. My hybrid version of the Mind Body Switch Jutsu and Spirit Transformation Technique technically allowed me to avoid imprinting any damage to my host’s body onto my soul. But that only worked if I entered and exited through the Soul Gate, NOT the Mind one.  
But like a dumbass, I’d jumped through the wrong in my panic and now I was paying the price.  
One day I’d learn to use the correct gate on instinct.  
But today was not that day… nor the next day, or the next day, or the day after that.

\---

As soon as I sensed Naruto's mind back in the village, I knew Lady Tsunade had arrived. They would be on their way to the Hospital now and their first stop would be Sasuke Uchiha.  
Quicker than I'd moved all week, I jumped out of bed, got dressed in my civilian clothes and hopped out the window. Racing across the rooftops of Konoha, I located Sakura's mind and shunshined to her side immediately.  
She gasped in shock as the smoke cleared and I flashed her a sheepish smile.  
"Sorry, forehead," I said, playfully winking at the pinkette, "But I have a quick favour to ask."  
"A favour?" Sakura asked dubiously, "Can't it wait, Ino-Pig? I'm on my way to see Sasuke right now."  
Unlike last time, I didn't react to the nickname. Instead, I dropped the playful airs and levelled the girl with my most serious airs.  
"I know. That's why I came to stop you before you entered his room."  
"What!? Why??" She was outraged, clearly thinking I was here to stop her from meeting with her precious heart throb.  
I held up a hand to forestall her whining.  
"Before you jump to conclusions, I need you to know that I'm not trying to steal your man away from you, Sakura."  
The girl huffed but acknowledged my words regardless.  
"Great! Now that that's sorted, how about that favour?" I asked.  
"Seriously, Ino? Do we have to do this now??" she groaned, “I’m about to visit Sasuke-kun.”  
I shook my head, "Sorry, but this can't wait. A medic-nin called Tsunade Senju is on her way to Hospital right now and she's going to wake Uchiha from his comma."  
Haruno cheered with delight, sending the bouquet of flowers in her hands flying into the air.  
"Oh no!" she cried, when she realised what she'd done and quickly scrambled to catch them all before they hit the ground.  
While she fluffed about, I double checked where Naruto was and nearly cursed when I felt them nearing the Hospital Gates.  
"Listen, Sakura!" I said, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to face me, "When Sasuke wakes up, he's going to be in shock and I need to help him. Believe me, if I could do this in person, I would. But you're the only one he trusts so I need to borrow your body."  
"NO WAY!!!" she yelled and shoved me away.  
"Please, Sakura!" I begged, rushing forward to grab her hands, "I need you to understand! Sasuke will be in pain and I need you to help me help him!!"  
The pinkette continued to shake her head. So, in a desperate move, I brought our hands together, squeezed reassuringly and sent a whisp of my chakra into her mind to coax her to be more agreeable. It wasn’t a Genjutsu, the girl had far too much control of her chakra for that to work. But rather, a direct persuasion planted subtly in her mind.  
Was that underhanded of me?  
Oh absolutely.  
But desperate times call for desperate measure!  
"Please," I spoke lowly, intending to make it seem I was sharing a great secret with her, "You are the only one who can do this. Without our help, his mind will spiral and he will crash. Is that what you want for him? To be trapped in anguish??"  
Pinky's breath hitched at that and I knew I was close.  
"You know I would never ask this of you unless there was no other way,” I pressed, “Please, Sakura. He needs our help."  
A second passed where the girl gathered her thoughts and I bit my lip from screaming at her and just forcing my way into her body anyway.  
That wouldn’t work though.  
We both knew she had a second personality acting as a guard dog in there and I would need her expressed permission to enter so it wouldn’t immediately kick me out.  
After a short eternity, she finally nodded and I sagged in relief.  
"Thank you, thank you!" I threw myself into a big bear hug and squeezed, "You have no idea how much this means to me, Sakura! Thankyou.”  
In an unexpected move, forehead sighed deeply and whispered, "Promise me you'll leave when I ask?"  
I would do no such thing.  
But… if she needed to hear the words to be reassure then… "I promise." I lied.  
My long-time friend FINALLY nodded her consent.  
Without further ado, I led her through the Hospital's reception and into Sasuke's ward. When we reached the door, I sat myself down on the floor, leaned my back against the wall and cast a mild Genjutsu to blend my body into my surroundings. Just in case people wondered why there was an unconscious girl lying on the ground and disrupted my focus.  
"Ready?" I asked.  
Sakura nodded, "Ready."  
One hand sign later and I was inside Pinky's body and stepping into the open ward.  
Sasuke Uchiha lay in the first bed on my right, pale as a ghost. Physically he was untouched as the damage had rebounded onto me. But mentally, he was fighting off the Tsukuyomi.  
Some nurse had taken the time to tuck him in like a bug in a rug and left the curtains wide open, letting sunlight illuminate his gaunt face. There was a single wooden stool for visitors to sit on next to the bed and a standard bed-side table planted on the opposite side.  
I could sense Tsunade and Naruto entering the reception downstairs. So, I took my time replacing the flowers in Sasuke's bedside vase before sitting primly on the stool, acting as if I'd been there all day. Three minutes later, the door slid open and the Slug Princess marched in.  
"May I come in?" she asked, pointedly already standing at the foot of my boy's hospital bed. Internally, I rolled my eyes at the women while Inner-Sakura asked, "Who is she?"  
'Lady Tsunade,' I answered.  
"Wow... She's beautiful!"  
I rose to my feet and bowed politely at the woman. "Of course, come in Lady Tsunade," I greeted, keeping Sakura’s face sombre. Before she could return the greeting however, Uzumaki's voice echoed down the hall screaming, "SAKURA! SAKURA!" at the top of his lungs. Inner-Sakura growled at her team-mate, “He is so annoying!”  
The number one knucklehead burst into the room and ran up to us, a happy-go-lucky smile painted across his face.  
"SAKURA! YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE IT! SHE'S GOING TO MAKE EVERYTHING OKAY AGAIN!!!"  
He turned and looked down at Sasuke's unconscious form, grinning, "Don't worry! Sasuke's gonna be aaaallllright now!"  
The blonde looked so different to when I'd last seen him, it was like night and day. The image of his terrified form flashed briefly across my eyes and it took every last inch of my self-control not to burst into relieved tears.  
Instead, I patted him on the shoulder and smiled softly, "Thanks, Naruto."  
Inner Sakura scoffed, "Don't thank the dweeb! Focus on my Sasuke, Ino-Pig!!!"  
'Jeez! I was just trying to be supportive,' I mentally grumbled.  
Why did Sakura's subconscious have to be so mean to the boy?  
"I heard that!"  
Ignoring her, we all watched as Lady Tsunade laid a gentle palm on the Uchiha's forehead. Tea green chakra burst to life in her hand and began humming like busy bees in a beehive.  
Ever so slowly, I sensed my boy's consciousness crawling into the world of the living, inch by painful inch.  
I almost winced as I felt how chaotic and damaged his mind was. It was like someone had taken an electric beater to his brain and scrambled it like eggs!  
In other words, it was a complete mess.  
After two tense minutes spent in silence, Sasuke's eyebrows twitched. Soon, they had scrunched up and he was grimacing in pain.  
My heart went out to him. I couldn't imagine what he must be feeling right now... Shock? Confusion? Fear? Anger? Loss?  
He'd just been forced to rewitness the slaughter of his clan, over and over again on a loop... And all by the hand he dedicated his life to kill... How was someone ever supposed to recover from that???  
Well, the first step of Project: Save Sasuke, started with giving him space to gain his bearings.  
As the exhausted Uchiha pushed himself up into a sitting position, I placed my hands on my hips and ordered everybody out.  
"That includes you, Naruto," I warned, "Sasuke is in shock right now and he needs time to recover before you bother him."  
"WAAAA?!?!" he cried, "THAT'S NOT FAIR, SAKURA-CHAN!!!"  
I levelled him with my best, 'Don't test me look' and he quickly deflated.  
"Fiiiiine," he grumbled, "Come on Grandma Tsunade, you're not done yet!"  
Tsunade let out an offended huff at the nickname but obligingly guided Shizune and Tonton the pig out of the room. When the door finally slid shut behind them, I turned back round to face an unresponsive Sasuke.  
There was no light in his eyes, no spark of awareness or flicker of recognition in his mind. He was well and truly stuck inside his head and most likely reeling from coming out of the powerful Genjutsu.  
Thus, I carefully closed the curtains surrounding his Hospital bed until we were wrapped in our own private cocoon. It would be easier for his mind to return to an enclosed space, rather than be bombarded with a big empty ward.  
Next, I pulled the sheets loose at the other end of his bed and slid inside so I was sitting cross-legged underneath the sheets. Konoha Hospital had pretty long beds for their adult patients, so it wasn't a surprise to me when my knees hovered a few inches away from the Uchiha's feet.  
The aim of this move wasn't to crowd his space, but to let him know I was metaphorically in the same hole he was in. It would hopefully help him feel more at ease.  
Resting Sakura's back against the foot board, I pointedly took in a deep breath, held it for four. Then let it out for a count of eight. I repeated this process several times until his breathing subconsciously synched with mine and the erratic rising and falling of his chest subsided.  
Through all this, Sasuke stayed mentally unresponsive. Not even a twitch of his fingers or wiggle of his nose could be spotted.  
"What are you doing? HUG HIM ALREADY!!!" Inner Sakura yelled.  
'No,' I mentally shook my head, 'Too much contact now and we’ll lose him.'  
"...Fine," she begrudged.  
Now that she was out of the way, I slowly reached forward and took Sasuke's still hands in my own. They were stiff and cold like a cadavers and his fingernails had grown out a bit. When he woke up properly, he was not going to be pleased about that.  
But that was an issue for later.  
Back in the present, I gently began rubbing circles on top of his hands with my thumbs, aiming to give him a rhythmic pattern to help his mind focus on the sense of touch.  
After ten whole minutes of this and he was still unresponsive, I decided it was time to bring out the big guns!

"Let's go in the garden,  
You'll find something waiting,  
Right there where you left it lying upside down.

When you finally find it,  
You'll see how it's faded,  
The underside is lighter when you turn it around.

Everything stays, right where you left it,  
Everything stays, but it still changes,  
Ever so slightly, daily and nightly,  
In little ways, everything stays."

I sang the song, 'Everything Stays' from Adventure Time (Something he had no prior associations with) over and over again while simultaneously sending a sliver of my chakra into his head and coaxing his mind into associating the song with 'SAFE' and 'COMFORT'.  
Sasuke's scrambled brain needed a safe place to retreat too right now and he didn't have one... Itachi had destroyed it when he first put him under his Tsukuyomi.  
So, I helped give him a new one.  
From now on, whenever he heard this song, feelings of safety, warmness and comfort would flood his mind and he could safely retreat into his happy place.

"Everything stays, right where you left it,  
Everything stays, but it still changes,  
Ever so slightly, daily and nightly,  
In little ways, everything stays..."

I had just finished the end of my fifth time through the chorus when tears slowly pooled in Sasuke's eyes. Not stopping the rhythmic circling with my thumbs, I watched sadly as the tears started to run down his cheeks and drip of his chin.  
I didn't bother him with well wishes and apologies right now, no matter how sincere they would be, because that wasn't what he needed.  
He needed a moment to cry it out with no judgmental eyes watching and that's what I gave him.  
Wearing Sakura's face, I switched to humming the tune softly and held back my own tears as the boy I’d sworn to help cried silently.

"Let's go in the garden,  
You'll find something waiting,  
Right there where you left it lying upside down.

When you finally find it,  
You'll see how it's faded,  
The underside is lighter when you turn it around..."

A spark of life flickered in the depths of his coal black eyes. The silent tears continued to fall, my thumbs continued to ground him with their touch, and I mentally shushed Inner-Sakura when she screeched, "HE'S AWAKE!!!"  
'Will you shut up?! I'm trying to help our friend here and you're distracting me, Forehead!'  
"Give me back control!"  
'Not yet,' I thought, 'He still needs my help.'  
"UGH! Then hurry up, slow poke!"  
Honestly, that girl was so impatient it was a wonder she managed to sit through the Chunin exams without fidgeting.  
Closing my eyes, I focused on Uchiha's scrambled eggs and sighed in relief when I sensed it knitting itself back together. It would take twenty-four hours, but his mind was on-track to making a full recovery. Unfortunately, some of his neural pathways were damaged and were going to be permanently altered after this...  
I could only hope the curse of hatred wouldn't sink its claws in too deep.  
"Sakura...?" Sasuke whispered, the light finally returning to his eyes fully. I could still sense the mountain of confusion, fear and sadness swarming his mind. But he had managed to grasp onto consciousness using Sakura's familiar presence at last.  
Squeezing his hand, I said, "You're safe now, Sasuke. Naruto and I are here for you."  
That wasn't literally true.  
But the words were more about letting him know that he wasn't alone in the world and that his two trusty teammates were still standing by his side, ready to help and support.  
"...i, itachi..." He mumbled, voice sounding hoarse and dry. He was in dire need of a glass of water. Though I didn't dare interrupt him yet. Lest he clam up and never speak of this again.  
Instead, I continued with my humming.  
"'Tachi... He... He killed mum... Dad, he...I, I, I don't understand!?"  
His body began to full on tremble now and crocodile tears poured from his eyes. The thirteen-year-old continued to jumble his words in a desperate attempt to make sense of the situation. While I sat infront of him calmly and tried not to break my rhythm.  
"Shhhh," I said, "It's over. You're safe now, Sasuke. I promise you're safe here."  
He shook his head, "No, no... Aunt Uruchi a, and Uncle Teyaki!!... They... But 'Tachi, he... TELL ME ITS NOT TRUE!!!"  
I stopped rubbing his hands then and squeezed them again tightly, "I'm so sorry, Sasuke... They're gone."  
It was at this point, I sensed him tug on the emotional tether I'd made as he slowly drew on it to ground himself in reality.  
Disbelief, shock, fear, sadness, and anger all flew through his head at a rapid speed.  
I felt like I'd just gotten whiplash!  
The grief was so intense, I was able to catch the image of two bleeding corpses, a man, and a women. Followed by glowing red eyes, a street full of bodies, a cloud of billowing smoke, rows upon rows of head stones and an empty house. Most vividly of all, I could hear the voice of Itachi Uchiha repeating the phrases, "Go away, you don't interest me right now.", "You don't have enough hate.", "Foolish little brother, you're not even worth killing," and, "You're still too weak." Over and over and over and OVER AGAIN!  
It didn't matter that he hadn't said them in real life because he'd tormented his brother's mind with them inside the Tsukuyomi, were there was no escape... no reprieve…  
Itachi really knew where to hit where it hurt most and the young Uchiha’s pride had been pulverized. To have his sense of self-worth stomped on like that must have torn his heart in two!  
"Oh my god... Poor Sasuke!" Inner-Sakura said, for once not sounding angry. "We have to help him!!!"  
'We are, Sakura,' I mentally chided, 'He needs some time to mourn before he'll be ready to heal, alright? And it won't be easy for him.'  
The voice at the back of my head gave the mental equivalent of a nod.  
Meanwhile, the Uchiha's memories of the last five years had come crashing back and he was openly sobbing now. I knew that it was time to let Sakura do what Sakura did best and wrap him up in a big, warm hug.  
And yet I was reluctant to leave him alone...  
'Remember, DON'T talk, just let him cry in peace, okay?'  
"Yeah, yeah, cry in peace, I've got it Ino-pig!"  
I could only hope that that was true as I relinquished control of Sakura Haruno's body and returned to my own.

\---

The next day, Sasuke was discharged from the Hospital and Team Seven were sent on a C-Rank Escort Mission in the Land of Tea. I knew my boy’s mind wasn't ready to be put under that kind of pressure yet. His mental wounds were still scarring over and that made his mind fragile. All it would take is one emotional stressful situation and he would snap!  
But what could I do? What could I say?  
I was just the lowly Genin, Ino Yamanaka.  
I had no say in what a fellow Genin could or could not do. Let alone have the authority to deem him mentally unfit for duty when I wasn't a qualified medic-nin or mind healer yet. I could only pray that my emotional tether held strong and another remote intervention wasn't necessary.

\---

Three days later, Sasuke Uchiha was back in the hospital.  
This time, I didn't bother rushing to his side or hijacking Sakura's body to see how he was doing. I already knew how he was doing... And it was bad.  
The tether had snapped yesterday evening and I'd immediately felt the whiplash of several emotions slamming into my brain. He had felt pain, frustration, disappointment, and helplessness. There had been images of a green haired-purple eyed nineteen-year-old shinobi, the sound of staticky crackling, a sword made of yellow lightning and then a mind-numbing scream that nearly made my ears bleed.  
I quickly deduced he had been bested in battle by Aoi Rokusho, a rogue ninja from Ame.  
That meant the Land of Tea Escort Mission Arc and gone down as the plot demanded and my boy was scheduled to abandon the village any day now...  
To be honest, I wanted to cry.  
I had tried so, so hard to help the youngest Uchiha with his mental health. But at the end of the day, I couldn't stop him from spiralling and I couldn't protect him from Itachi's psychological abuse and genjutsu torture.  
I'd tried, sure.  
But that damn Uchiha had cornered me anyway and forced Sasuke to live through the massacre of his clan A SECOND TIME despite my best efforts!!!  
Even now, from several blocks away, I could hear Itachi's voice ringing in his head saying, "You're too weak." and, "You don't have enough hate." repeating themselves, one after the other in an endless cycle of torment.  
A part of me wanted desperately to run over there and fix the frayed tether. But the other part of me knew that any minute now, his anger, frustration and self-hate was going to spill over and he would order Naruto to fight him on the Hospital Roof.  
Besides, what right did I have to get in the middle of that?  
This was his journey, his mind after all.  
Who was I to march in there and tell him what was what?  
That would put me on-par with his good intentioned but highly manipulative brother and I'd promised myself I WOULD NOT turn out like that.  
... 'Sasuke?! What is going on with you?!?'  
"Oh?"  
I'd just caught a whiff of Sakura's thoughts. She had been thinking about the face Sasuke made while under the effects of the Curse Mark and the look of Orochimaru's snake eyes as he stared them down in the Forest of Death that one time.  
"Oh boy, here we go," I mumbled into my tea.  
"You say something, Ino?" Shikamaru asked.  
Shaking my head, I gave my best fake smile and said, "It’s nothing. I just heard Choji thinking about stealing my piece of meat."  
"Wah?!" Choji cried, retracting his hand from said piece of meat.  
Psychically, I sent Shikamaru a snippet of Naruto and Sasuke fighting on the Hospital Roof. While I mentally told Choji to, 'Back off my food!' Because it would be rude of me to make a scene infront of Minato Sensei. Plus, he was shouting us lunch at our favourite lunch place.  
Being polite was just common curtesy here.  
Nara sighed.  
I couldn't agree more with that more. This was all turning out to be so annoying...  
It wasn't until I sensed the Sound Four entering the village at the end of my meal that I decided to intervene in Uchiha’s wallowing. The meeting with them was the last on Sasuke's 'Abandon Konoha Checklist'. If I didn't say something soon then it would officially be too late to pull him back from the brink and I would’ve failed my self-imposed mission!  
So, I waited for the others to finish their meals before following the call of Sasuke's broken mind into the tress.  
I caught him at the tail end of Kakashi's lecture looking like someone had kicked his puppy.  
"Okay. End of Lecture," Kakashi was saying, "You decided whether what I'm saying hits the mark or not."  
With that not-so-helpful advice, the Jonin flickered away in a swirl of leaves. I took a quick moment to focus my sensory field on the Sound Nin and sensed them hanging out nearby. Meaning, they were blatantly standing on a roof top in full view of Sasuke's tree.  
Obviously, they had planned to take my boy during the day, but Hatake's intervention was forcing then to wait.  
This had happened in the anime too.  
Although with me here as well, the quartet would be forced to wait even longer.  
‘Too bad, so sad, suckers!’  
Gleefully, I shunshined to the branch above my target and immediately winced at the bombardment of thoughts echoing in my mind. Normally, the inner voices of others were pretty quiet, forcing me to really concentrate to hear them depending on how far away they were physically. Being so close to a mind like this, it was like standing next to a concert speaker on full blast!!!  
'You're weak, you're WEAK! YOU'RE WEAK!!!' his mind screamed, 'You don't have enough hate, Hate, HaTe, HATE! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! You're still too WEAK! You need more HATE!'  
Oof.  
He was spiralling like there was no tomorrow!  
It was time I lend him my trusty expertise.  
Dropping down onto the end of his branch, I sat down and let my legs dangle of the side casual as can be.  
"Let me guess, " I said, making an effort to stare of into the distance like an air-head, "After your fight with Naruto, you can't bring yourself to acknowledge his abilities because you think that will diminish your own. And now that you've had a glimpse of Kakashi's tragic backstory, you're wondering if the path you're going down will make you like him. You’re thinking, ‘Will that make me strong enough to beat a certain someone?’"  
There was a moment of awkward silence that confirmed I'd hit the nail on the head.  
Sasuke's thoughts were still spinning their way to a black hole, true. But a few streams of thought were focused solely on me and what I'd said.  
"Am I right, Uchiha?" I prodded, finally looking at him head-on.  
"Get out of my head, Yamanaka," he growled.  
Running my eyes up and down his hunched form, I decided to poke the bear, so to speak and rile him up a little further. He looked like he needed to let of some steam anyway.  
Really, I was doing him a favour.  
"What would be the point?" I teased, "Your thoughts are so loud, I don't even need to track you down inorder to possess your mind."  
"Oh really?" he said, black eyes narrowing at me, "Is that why I have a gap in my memories, Ino? You decided to take a stroll in my body and forgot to ask?!"  
I looked away guiltily.  
How best to approach that little chestnut...?  
"Well, you see-" I started but immediately got cut off.  
"Don't lie to me!" Sasuke jumped to his feet and stomped towards me angrily and like a good friend, I didn't resist as he gripped the collar of my top and yanked me forward. The position was a little uncomfortable, twisted to the side like this.  
But I wasn't going to complain.  
Sasuke needed to vent after all and I would gladly be his punching bag for as long as he needed to feel better.  
"One minute I was chasing after my brother and the next I was trapped inside his Tsukuyomi!!" He full-on sneered, "Explain how that happened, NOW!!!"  
"Okay! Okay!" I raised my hands in the universal sign of surrender, "I will... But are you sure you want to know, Uchiha? It's not a pretty scene."  
"Of course, I do!" his mind spat angrily, "Why else would I ask?!"  
On the outside, his grip tightened.  
"It’s just that...” I started hesitantly, “Well, once you know there's no going back, Sasuke. You won't understand most of my actions nor why I said what I did and I can't explain it to you without spilling family secrets. Sooo...?"  
"I don't care! Hurry up and show me!!" He demanded.  
I lifted a manicured eyebrow that said, 'I'm not impressed by your little temper tantrum' before gently guiding him to sit beside me anyway.  
Begrudgingly, he sat down. Although his body language let me know he wasn't happy about it.  
‘He’s so cute when he’s angry,’ I thought.  
Raising my hands to lay them on his temples, he quickly jerked away when my fingers hovered inches from his skin.  
"What are you doing?!" He asked, visibly alarmed.  
"I need to make a physical connect inorder to enter your mindscape," I explained.  
"Can't you possess my mind like you always do!?" he asked in obvious disgust and not-so-obvious discomfort.  
"Oh?" I cocked my head in mock confusion, "But don't you want me to stay out of your head, Sasuke-kun?"  
He opened his mouth to retaliate, then promptly shut it when he realised, I'd put him in a verbal bind. To say no would mean he wouldn't get his memories back. But to say yes would be to grant me free access to his mind.  
Never mind the fact I would always have access to his scrambled eggs of a brain thanks to Tsukuyomi's mind damage and that permanent hole in his soul that only reincarnated beings possessed.  
He couldn't fight me off even if he tried!  
(Not that he knew that of course)  
"Damn you, Yamanaka!" he thought, "You've backed me into a corner and you know it."  
Outside our heads, I smiled cheekily. "So, what's it gonna be Uchiha?"  
There was another moment of silence before he acquiesced.  
“Fine,” he spat.  
Without giving him a chance to change his mind, I made skin to skin contact and instantly plunged into his head space. Landing neatly amongst the ruins of his mindscape, I took a moment to admire the view just because.  
If I hadn't been here plenty of times before I might've freaked out at all the blood, eyeless corpses and burning Uchiwa fans lying around. Or done a double take at the Akatsuki clouds floating in the sky and winced at the sight of the dilapidated Uchiha District surrounded by eternally burning black flames.  
Thankfully, I was familiar with his mindscape and went right on ahead towards the main house.  
It was in here where he kept all his memories and thanks to his sharingan enhanced mind, each one was tucked behind a door down one of the endless empty hallways.  
I took the liberty of waltzing right on up to the empty room between his running memory and Tsukuyomi memory and swung the door wide open.  
It was barren, naturally, as I’d been the one in control while his consciousness had taken a short nap.  
The room itself was about 5 by 5 metres. The floors were made from tradition Japanese tatami mats, there was a built-in closet on the left. I spied a single window high up on the back wall. A faint red light shone through and bathed the tiny space in an eerie glow, similar to a haunted house I'd visited once in my first life.  
"Pleasant," I said and got to work.  
Squatting down in the doorway, I made sure my feet were planted firmly in the hallway and placed my hands flat on the floor of the room. I recalled my own memory of that day and when I could picture it in my mind's eye, I imagined it travelling from my brain, down my neck, over my shoulder, down my arms and out through my fingertips.  
The memory imbedded itself into the walls of the room and began to play out like a projection.  
But before it had a chance to fully warp the room into the scene and trap me inside, I slammed the door closed and dusted my hands off for a job well done.  
With that over with, I took the liberty of visiting the back garden as well!  
Every connection the boy had ever made was shown here as a stream, infinitely flowing from the koi pond and up into the sky like a reversed waterfall. It wasn't hard to spot the broken tether, represented as a tiny dried up stream hovering near the back uselessly.  
The poor thing was now nothing than a whisp now.  
Skipping over to it as if I had all the time in the world, (Because I did. Time in the mind worked differently guys)  
I reached the stream in no time and quickly spotted the problem.  
Somehow, the tether of 'SAFE' and 'COMFORT' had had its connection to the song 'Everything Stays' blocked but a mound of dirt that had spilled over from the rock garden.  
"Well that's strange," I said, "How did that happen?"  
Normally, the brain would resist a forced association like the one I'd made. But the Uchiha's psyche had been so mangled, I could have re-written every memory in his head and he wouldn't have noticed.  
So, how exactly, was he resisting me now?  
Nevermind.  
The only thing I could really do at this point was manually remove the dirt and restore the water flow. If it miraculously got blocked again, then I would have to come back and fix it.  
"Ugh, this is so annoying!" I scowled.  
After my mental hands were covered in dirt and the stream was restored, I willed a bit more water to add to it from the Koi pond. The reversed waterfall thickened and the connection was strengthened.  
Pulling out of Sasuke's mind, I plonked back into my body and huffed.  
That had taken a lot of work! More than I had expected, honestly.  
But now that it was all over, there was nothing left to do but let the teen ruminate.  
When the sun lowered over the horizon, he would be confronted by the still lurking Sound Four and history would repeat...  
Actually, I was tempted to telepathically tell them to hold off for a couple of days. But I knew the four were working with a time limit. Orochimaru was ready for a new vessel right now. Two more days and he would be dead without a new host. It was just too bad I wasn't going to be able to delay them.  
"Welp, that's all I came here to do," I said, standing up "Soooo... Give me a shout if you need someone unbiased to talk too, kay?"  
I turned to go, but Sasuke’s hand shot out and trapped my wrist in an iron grip. Looking from his hand to his face, I was confronted with the sight of sharingan eyes staring furiously at me.  
"Ummmm, " I tried to twist my wrist free but his grip only tightened until the bones ground together.  
"Why did he apologise? What is this Path of Hatred?" the Uchiha's voice was low and sharp, leaving no room for mumbles or stutters.  
It was a tone that demanded answers and I pitied the fool who tried to avoid him.  
Heaving a great sigh, I pointedly looked straight at the Sound Four eavesdropping on the roof nearby. Four sets of eyes widened in surprise before each one scowled at us hungrily. Now they knew I knew they were watching the Uchiha and that their cover was blown.  
'Give us an hour,' I pushed the request into their minds and listened to their thoughts for a reply.  
I wasn't stupid enough to try and run away with their prey. Not when they clearly outclassed me and mine. If they wanted to attack right now, they could and I wouldn't be able to stop them.  
I knew they knew this too.  
And so, my body stood completely still as they hashed it out between themselves.  
After a minute of arguing, Tayuya thought a loud, 'F.I.N.E.'  
'Thanks, I promise not to get in your way!' I mentally replied.  
"Not here," I said out-loud, turning away from the stalkers four, "Do you have a place we can talk without eavesdroppers?"  
“The Shrine could work…” he thought.  
Sasuke pushed himself to his feet and nodded.  
"Follow me," he said, then took off into the trees like the hounds of hell were on his tail.,  
Even injured, the little prodigy moved as fast as lightning!  
I was nowhere near as fast.  
Though luckily for me, I knew where we were headed already and so caught up to him at the stone steps where he had kindly stopped to wait.  
The ancient Nakano Shrine was falling apart from disuse, to nobody's surprise. I doubted Sasuke took time out of his busy training schedule to maintain the place. Cleaning a place occupied by the dead was beneath the noble Uchiha. He might catch ghost cooties after all.  
Standing before it now though, I couldn't help but wish he'd taken the effort anyway. It had a noble air about it that would have made it beautiful in its earlier years.  
Truly, it would have been a sight to behold in its heyday...  
Sasuke walked up to the doors and barged his way inside with no regard to the squeaky hinges and cracking wood.  
Obligingly, I followed him through the doors and stepped into a wide-open room. There were tatami mats on the floor, Uchiwa fans on the walls and a single scroll hanging on the back wall like a picture. Overall, I judged it very regal if a bit bare bones in design.  
My boy didn't bother with lighting the wall sconces. Instead he marched over to a random panel of the floor and lifted it up to revel a trap door. I tried not to wince at the memories that hit him when he looked at it. But that was a task easier said than done.  
"Come," he eventually ordered and jumped down without checking if I'd followed. We both knew I was going to go anyway, so why waist energy checking, right?  
Sometimes I really hated nobility.  
Once we were nestled in the "secret" underground chamber that had once served as the Uchiha Clan’s secret meeting place, Sasuke leant against the nearest wall and levelled me with that demanding stare again.  
It just oooooozed impatience.  
"Are you sure you want to hear this, Sasuke?" I asked one final time. This was his one chance to back-out. It would be wrong if I didn't at least let him have the chance to change his mind now.  
Unfortunately, the Uchiha 'hn'ed his consent.  
‘Alright, time to throw a wrench into Itachi’s plans!’  
"As you know," I began, "The Uchiha Clan feel emotions more strongly than others. When a member experiences loss or trauma in relation to a loved one, it releases a special chakra in their brain that travels to the optic nerves, awakening the Sharingan. The stronger the pain and anguish one feels, the more powerful the dojutsu... But there's a catch."  
At this proclamation, Sasuke visibly perked up and I knew I had him hooked on my sorry tale.  
"The more those feelings of sadness and loss are drawn on, the quicker they are twisted into hate and anger. The sharingan becomes fuel for that festering hatred and through that stem’s stubbornness and an unwavering goal to destroy the object of their hatred. The strongest of them are compelled to keep going until it kills them."  
I looked sadly into my boy's two tomoe sharingan eyes, "That is the Curse of Hatred."  
At seeing the roots of the curse already imbedding its hooks into the teen before me, I felt my chest physically start to ache.  
No matter what I did at this point, Sasuke would go down the path of hatred his brother had paved before him and fall victim to his own suffering.  
It was a tragedy I couldn't stop and I hated myself for that…  
However, just because he was going to go down that path, didn’t mean he would do so inorder to kill Itachi. No, no, he was going to do so inorder to kill Danzo Shimura. The true mastermind behind his kinsmen’s downfall.  
"The more powerful my love; the more powerful my hate will become?" he asked.  
I nodded, wishing there was another way when there wasn't.  
"I'm so sorry, Sasuke." I said apologetically, "I tried to convince Itachi to stop pushing you down this path, knowing it can only lead to self-destruction but he wouldn't listen. He is determined to have you judge him for his actions and then… execute him.”  
The boy went still, thoughts of his brother and his cruel words swirling like a tornado in his head. Then he seemed to stall as the implication of my sentence settled into his brain.  
‘Judge him for his actions? That doesn’t make sense… He said he killed them to test his power! Was he lying?! WHY WOULD HE LIE!!??’  
“Your lying,” the kid accused/begged me to confirm, “That doesn’t make sense.”  
Internally, I marvelled at how calm his voice came across despite his raging thoughts and emotions. It was impressive, actually. He had a very good poker face.  
“I looked inside his head, Uchiha,” I warned, “Thoughts don’t lie. He plans for you to walk the path of hatred so you can gain the power to kill him. For whatever reason, he thinks you killing him will restore the Uchiha clan’s reputation and make you untouchable from the Konoha Elders.”  
His head snapped up, “The Elder’s Council? What do they have to do with this?”  
Oh boy, was that a loaded question…  
How best to go about explaining that chestnut???  
Taking a breath, I ran my eyes over my boy one last time. His fists were shaking in a mix of rage and confusion and his mind was still reeling from the discovery of the Curse of Hatred and its implications. Plus, he was warring with himself over Itachi’s actions that night.  
Sasuke couldn’t understand why his ex-brother wanted him to judge him guilty for the crimes he supposedly committed to quote, “Test his Power.”  
I decided to explain and beat Obito to the punch!  
But first, one last warning.  
“If I tell you this, I will be breaking my oath to the village and committing treason,” I said, “You will no longer be safe from the Council’s wrath once they learn you know… Are you willing to take that risk?”  
My voice must have been filled with way more gravitas than I intended because my boy hesitated. ‘No longer safe? From the Council? I don’t understand… why would I be in danger in the first place!? THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!!! I’ve done NOTHING wrong!’  
‘Oh Sasuke…’ I mentally cringed.  
My words were about to rock his world! And seeing him now, looking so young and confused and vulnerable like this, I wished I was mean enough to keep him in the dark.  
But that would be wrong; I knew this.  
Still... was now really the time to break the news??? I wasn’t so sure anymore…  
Finally, Sasuke Uchiha came to a decision.  
“Tell me,” he demanded, “Tell me everything.”  
With a sigh, I mirrored his posture and slumped against the opposite wall. “Alright,” I said, “But be warned. I can’t tell you how I know this information, nor when it came into my possession, alright?”  
He nodded impatiently.  
“Okay, so, you know how the Nine-Tails attacked the village when we were babies? Yeah, turns out the village low-key blamed the Uchiha Clan for the attack as the Mangekyou Sharingan is historically known to be able to control the beast and there was an unidentified figure who was controlling the fox that night.”  
I paused to catch my breath before ploughing ahead with my tale.  
“For years after the attack, the Uchiha were ostracized and slowly isolated from the rest of the village. According to Itachi’s memories, the Uchiha were planning a Coup D’état in retaliation. But your cousin… shishi? Shisui? I don’t really remember. BUT ANYWAY! Your cousin was going to use his Manekyou to Genjutsu the entire clan and prevent the coup.”  
At that point I began scuffing my shoe against the gravel floor, kicking at a random pebble. The atmosphere was starting to get tense and it was making me nervous all of a sudden.  
Did I really want to tell him what happened next? Would he be able to handle it?? Was I making a HUGE mistake???  
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ I decided, ‘He deserves to know the truth behind the massacre.’  
“But Danzo… He ambushed shisui and stole one his eyes before he could go through with the plan. Itachi showed up too late to save him. So shisui gave him his second eye and… killed himself, triggering your brother’s awakening of his Mangekyou.”  
I had to forcibly stop myself from sensing Sasuke’s thoughts then, as the waves of shock, anguish and disbelief were to much for me to bare.  
“After that, the Council presented Itachi with a deal. He could either die with his clan when they attacked, forcing the Hokage to slaughter them all and leave their reputation smirched. Or, he could kill them all himself before they caused a civil war and shoulder the blame… I think you know which option he chose.”  
As I hadn’t been monitoring his thoughts, I was unprepared for when my boy slumped to the floor and began hyperventilating. The poor kid was having a full-blown panic attack!  
Quickly tuning back in, my head was suddenly bombarded with incoherent screams.  
'why, Why, WHY!!! WHY WOULD HE DO THAT!?!- To test my ability- SHUT.UP. Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!!! You’re lying! YOU LIAR! - Foolish little brother- WHY? WHY DIDN’T HE KILL ME?! I hate him, I haTe hIm, I HATE HIM!!!’  
Alright, that was it!  
Sasuke need to visit his happy place Right. Now.  
Rushing to his side, I kneeled down infornt of his drawn-up legs and placed both hands on top of his trembling knees.

"Let's go in the garden,  
You'll find something waiting,  
Right there where you left it lying upside down.

When you finally find it,  
You'll see how its faded,  
The underside is lighter when you turn it around.

Everything stays, right where you left it,  
Everything stays, but it still changes,  
Ever so lightly, daily and nightly,  
In little ways, everything stays..."

My voice filled the cavern, drowning out my boy’s panting and sniffling. We stayed like this for what felt like hours. His mind continued to spiral uncontrollably while a litany of emotions raged through his heart. He was in such emotional agony; I was worried my tether wouldn’t be enough to ground him…  
I could only continue to sing under my breath and pour my chakra into his mind, coaxing the tether to grow stronger and stronger. As I started my fifth go around the song, I sensed Sasuke's thoughts begin to calm as my tether FINALY began to sink its claws in. The loud, angry voices in his head were gradually replaced by memories of his mother's voice and his father's proud smile. His fists unclenched from their death grip and his deep breaths returned to a normal.

“Everything stays, right where you left it,  
Everything stays, but it still changes,  
Ever so lightly, daily and nightly,  
In little ways, everything stays..."

Eventually, the tears dried up and he croaked out a broken, “Why… why didn’t he kill me?”  
Guiltily, I dropped my head on top of his knees and squeezed. “I am so sorry, Sasuke,” I whispered, “He couldn’t bring himself to kill you… I think he loves you too much.”  
A heart wrenching sob escaped his lips and he curled further into himself.  
‘Its not fair! HOW could he love me?!! I’m cursed… HE cursed me... I want to kill him! I NEED to kill him!! I HAVE TO KILL HIM!!! B, but it’s not his fault… IT’S the Village’s fault!!’  
‘Uuuuugh, this is so annoying.’  
“Listen Sasuke,” I said, “I’m gonna have to stop you right there. Itachi may not be at fault here, but neither is the Village as a whole. We live in a Totalitarian Government where the flow of information is controlled and all decisions are made by the hokage and its council. It is not the clans and citizens fault that they turned on your clan. They were manipulated into doing so by Danzo and the Council, okay? If it’s anybody’s fault, then it’s theirs.”  
‘The… Council’s fault? The Hokage’s fault? N, no… NO! She’s LYING!!! They would NEVER turn on them like that!!! Ino is WRONG.’  
Damn.  
This was not going as planned.  
The kid was supposed to direct his hatreds Hiruzen Sarutobi, Danzo Shimura, Homura Mitokado, and Koharu Utatane. They were the true master mind’s behind the Uchiha Massacre. The Shinobi Clans, Merchant Clans and Civilians were just sheep strung along in the dark. I wouldn’t exactly call them innocent, as every mind still had to make the conscious decision to shun the Uchiha. But when you lived in Konoha, it was easy to do so.  
Sasuke was refusing to believe this though… Was it time to bring out the bid guns?  
Yes, yes it was.  
Shifting so I was sitting cross-legged before the highly confused and anger ridden boy, I kept my hands on-top of his knees and began gently entered his mindscape.  
I wasted no time making my way to the central house and stepping inside. A dreary living room with blood stained tatami mats greeted me. It was here I found the representation of Uchiha’s conscious mind as an avatar of his thirteen-year-old self.  
It was sitting in the middle of the room staring blankly at the dried stains, completely oblivious to my presence. Scenes of the massacre played out on the walls like a projector on loop.  
Ignoring the gruesome and heart-wrenching Tsukuyomi induced memories, I marched over to the boy’s side and grabbed his hand. He looked up at me, a blank look in his obsidian eyes.  
“Leave,” he ordered, “I want to be alone.”  
“Well too bad, Uchiha,” I huffed, yanking him to his feet.  
He didn’t resist as I squeezed his in my iron grip and dragged him out the door. He followed almost dejectedly behind me, only falling town steps behind my own fast paced ones.  
I walked us to the outskirts of the abandoned Uchiha district and stopped us before the eternally burning black flames surrounding its border.  
The Amertarasu flames were source of the Curse of Hatred. I guessed that when Sasuke awoke his Mangekyou, these flames would zoom inside the district, enter the backyard, and begin consuming one the upside-down rivers that contained his most precious connection.  
That river/relationship would then become the source of his power and would probably help direct his hatred.  
I figured, ‘Why wait till then when I could pre-emptively direct it now?’  
So, without further ado, I directed Sasuke’s avatar to scoop up a handle of the flames, then marched us back through the compound and into the back garden. Predictably, the one that held his connection to the village was beginning to fizzle and dry. But it was the teeny tiny river branching off form that one that was due my wrath!  
“You see that stream over there?” I pointed at the river that housed the miniscule connection my boy had with the Konoha Council, “Dump the flames onto the water.”  
The avatar did so without question.  
I grinned in satisfaction as the all-consuming flames immediately chased the water all the way into the sky and disappeared above the red clouds. Soon, the entire river was replaced with an ever flickering black one, illogically casting shadows on the all the connections around it.  
‘There. All done!’  
Pulling back out of Sasuke’s mind, I retuned to my own to find that only a second had passed in the real world.  
That was always my favourite part about the land of the mind; time moved quicker there.  
‘I-I-I don’t… Danzo… its Danzo’s fault? YES! It’s the COUNCIL’S FAULT!!!’  
Perfect.  
The youngest Uchiha’s mind had focused his hatred on the correct source and was running with it. (Just as planned)  
‘Take that Itachi!’  
The Sound Four were still hovering nearby and any minute now, they were going to get sick of waiting and barge inside in search of my boy. I decided I’d done everything I could and got up to leave. Looking back down at Sasuke, I gave him one final warning.  
“Whatever path you choose to take now, You. Can. NOT. Tell a single soul what I’ve just told you, alright?” I said, “As soon as the council get wind the jig is up, they’re going to come after you with everything they have. Do you understand me, Sasuke? They will kill you!”  
Slowly, he raised his head and locked eyes with my cerulean ones.  
I sucked in a sharp breath.  
The Uchiha’s third tomoe had come through.  
‘Oh, my poor boy,’ I thought sadly, ‘I am so, so sorry.’  
“I understand,” He said.  
What exactly he understood, I didn’t have time to ponder because Sakon/Ukon had just ordered his team to move out and it was time for me scram. Not letting reluctance slow my movements, I rose to my feet and headed towards the hatch in the roof.  
Just before I jumped up, I glanced over my shoulder and let my cerulean eyes rest on Sasuke’s defeated form.  
“The Curse of Hatred may be unavoidable,” I said, “But that doesn’t mean it has to consume you. If I were you, I’d do some soul searching and decide if revenge is worth it.”  
On that note, I left him to be ambushed by the Sound Four, gingerly hoping they didn’t beat him up too hard.  
‘Dear Amaterasu, don’t let them beat him up too much!’

\---

At midnight, I sensed Sasuke's resolve harden and knew he'd made the fateful decision to leave Konohagakure behind, gain power from Orochimaru and slaughter the council.  
I'd pointedly NOT listened while the Stalkers Four beat him to a pulp (Because that felt a tad too intruding) and now I was paying for it.  
Lying in bed, dressed in my lilac pyjamas, I internally groaned at his choices. I really should have seen this coming. It was the decision that made the most sense after all.  
But I a part of me still wished he’d chosen to stay.  
Now, I was in the tricky predicament of being the obvious source of Sasuke’s defection…  
'So,' I asked myself, 'Sasuke Uchiha is going to leave the village and live with Orochimaru for three years and ROOT spies will blame you. What are you going to do about that?'  
Well... I guess if I was thinking about the safety of Konoha, it would be best to possess his body and turn him in to Lady Tsunade. If I was thinking about the wellbeing of Sakura and Naruto, I'd let him go undisturbed. Because the loss of their teammate would drive them to new and better heights in the long run. Even though it would hurt them in the short-term.  
If I was thinking about the well fare of the world and the incoming global conflict, I would let him go and let him get that much needed power boost from the snake.  
Finally, if I thought of only Sasuke and his wellbeing, I would accompany him on his journey. He would need someone to watch his back in the snake pit and when, not if, his safe-space tether broke, I would be there to fix it.  
Perhaps I could even use my psychic skills to help other prisoners?  
It would certainly be good practice and a fun experience dealing with so many warped and traumatised minds. Of course, I'd have to find a way to convince Sasuke to take me... And the Sound Four... AND Orochimaru and that sly fox, Kabuto...  
"Hmmmm..."  
This was a tough choice.  
To do nothing would be to give the plot free reign. But to act was to mess with the powers that be and they'd already proven they liked to fight. Just look at how badly my interference with Sasuke and Itachi's meeting had gone!  
Mabey, I hadn't made it any worse but I hadn't made it any better either!!!  
I sensed Sasuke finish packing and felt him head out the door.  
"Crap!" I swore.  
Jumping out of bed, I made a split-second decision to go with him and began packing furiously. As I got dressed in my normal shinobi gear, I wondered if it was best to ambush him before or after he'd had his rendezvous with Sakura??  
The two had always shared some chemistry so... After? Yeah, after.  
Strapping my kunai holster to my thigh, I decided to grab a compact storage scroll from my desk. It was small enough to slip into the shuriken pouch at my hip and would be less conspicuous than a backpack.  
I got busy sealing away three sets of PJs, my spare purple blouse and matching skirt, all my underwear, my black pair of shinobi sandals, all my white sports wrappings and four regular tee-shirts and shorts. Then, I wrote a quick note to my father explaining I wasn't actually abandoning the village but was leaving for a bit inorder to keep tabs on Uchiha and not to worry. The old timer would still worry of course, he was a dad after all. But at least this way I got to let him know I’d be back someday.  
With that all settled, I flew out my window and shunshined across the city like my life depended on it.  
Once again, I caught my boy at the tail end of a conversation and had to dive into the bushes before I accidentally interrupted.  
"You haven't changed," Sasuke said to Sakura.  
Ouch.  
That had to sting.  
"DON'T LEAVE ME!!!" Haruno cried, running after his quickly retreating form, "If you go, I'll scream and-"  
In an instant, Sasuke flickered behind Haruno's vulnerable form. The little cry baby was so shocked, both her mouth and her thoughts quickly froze.  
It was a Christmas miracle!  
Why couldn't I have that effect on her?!  
"Sakura," he said, "... thank you for everything."  
And just like that, he knocked her out with a sharp jab to the neck and layed her down on the nearby stone bench.  
It was the time to reveal myself.  
Stepping out of the bush, I experimentally threw a kunai at Sasuke's head and smirked when he caught it without looking.  
"Ino," He said, still staring at his ex-teammate.  
"Sasuke," I returned, "That was a bit harsh, don't you think? The poor girl will be heart-broken when she wakes up tomorrow."  
The Uchiha levelled me with a look and I raised my hands in mock surrender.  
"What are you doing here?" he asked.  
Hm, he wanted to cut straight to the chase, aye?  
Fine.  
Folding my arms, I stuck my hip out and smiled at him knowingly, "I heard you were moving on to bigger and better things. Is it so wrong of me to want to say goodbye to a friend?"  
His eyes narrowed, mind wondering, 'What is her game?'  
When neither of us spoke, he scoffed and resumed his trek towards the gates.  
"We're not friends, Yamanaka," he said, voice low and dangerous, "Try to stop me and I will hurt you."  
'I'd like to see you try,' I projected into his head.  
Uncrossing my arms, I trotted up to his side as if he hadn't just threatened to kill me. He gave me the side away warningly. But again, I pretended not to notice.  
(That never failed to get a rise out of guys like him)  
"What are you doing?" he demanded, "I told you to leave!"  
"Hmmm," tapping my chin with the tip of my finger, I made a show of thinking about it. "Nah,” I smirked, “I don't think I will.”  
Suddenly, the minds of two chunin guards flickered into existence from our right. In instinct, I gripped Uchiha's shoulder and teleported us to the top of the gate, barely dodging the guards as they rounded the corner.  
"Get off me!" Sasuke snapped.  
He slapped my hand away and flexed his chakra at me menacingly.  
"Calm down," I said, my tone of voice communicating how annoying he was being. "I just saved your ass from getting caught. A little gratitude would be nice."  
He 'hn'ed at me like the ungrateful brat he was.  
"For the last time, Go. Away. Ino." he sneered.  
Ugh.  
What was his deal today?! There was no need to be rude.  
"Would you pull your head out of your arse for a minute and think!" I growled, "I didn't stop you from knocking out forehead, I just saved you from getting caught by the border patrol and now I'm actively helping you locate the Sound Four. What do you think that means, genius?!"  
The sour expression on his face was priceless.  
'Why? WHY is she helping me??? WHY won't she just LEAVE ME ALONE!? I'm so sick of her antics!!! I DON’T NEED HER HELP!’  
At hearing his thoughts, I dropped all airs and addressed him honestly for the first time in this life.  
"Look Sasuke," I started, "We may never have been proper friends. But I've been inside your mind too many times to count and the truth is, you need my help. As I have unwillingly grown fond of you, I'm going to join you on your quest of revenge. If only to be your safety net when you inevitably hit a snag, okay?"  
Sasuke's sour look morphed into one of surprise then quickly turned into anger.  
"I don't want your help," he hissed.  
"Well tough."  
I pointed a finger at his chest and poked him. "Remember,” I warned, “I've got a permanent hook into your mind, Sasuke. That means I will always be able to possess you. Anywhere, anytime. Just try and stop me from coming! I promise you it will be pointless."  
A Mexican stare off commenced.  
Sasuke Uchiha had his hands poised to form a jutsu and Ino Yamanaka stood ready to jump into his mind at the drop of a hat.  
10 seconds... 30 seconds... 50 seconds... 1 MINUTE!  
Finally, Sasuke Uchiha blinked and Ino Yamanaka knew she’d won.  
The triumphant look on my face caused my boy to scowl. He tried to pull of his 'I Don't Give A Tosh' attitude but ended up looking like I'd stolen the last cookie in the cookie jar from him instead.  
"Fine," he said, "But if you get in my way..." 'I'll kill you!'  
YES!  
Stare down for the win!!  
'Take that Shikamaru!!!' I thought viscously.

\---

"It had already been decided that the moment you abandoned the village, you would become our new leader."  
In unison, the Creepy Four bowed their heads as the two-headed dude continued, "Please forgive our rudeness we displayed earlier."  
'He is such a suck-up!' Tayuya thought.  
'I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM!' Jirobo mentally screamed.  
'How DARE he replaces Kimimaro!' Kidomaru was thinking.  
Sakon & Ukon were hoping Orochimaru ate the kid alive.  
It suddenly occurred to me then that they were all complexly insane!!!  
Was this a product of the curse mark or just them?  
Sasuke moved to walk forward, oblivious to their hostile nature, so I shot out a hand and blocked his path.  
"Careful Sasuke," I whispered, "Don't turn your back to them. They're not trustworthy."  
"And you are?" he countered, pushing my arm aside.  
I levelled him with my 'I Am Being Serious' look and said loudly, "They wish to kill you," then shot narrowed eyes at the insane four, "Despite Lord Orochimaru's orders."  
They all grit their teeth but didn't deny it.  
That spoke volumes in my book.  
For his part, the angsty Uchiha just 'hn'ed in dismissal before marching forward and declaring, "Like I care." in an apathetic tone.  
The sad part was, he really didn't.  
His mind was so focused on getting to the Land of Sound, he honestly couldn't care less if his new "comrades" stabbed him in the back.  
Thank god I was here to have his back!  
"Let's go," Sasuke ordered.  
Kidomaru, Jirobo, Tayuya and Sakon & Ukon all rose in complete obedience, it was actually a little scary. Ukon stared straight at me and I waved. He grimaced in return.  
"I don't mean to disrespect your judgement, Sasuke," His twin head said, "But she wasn't invited."  
The 'she' in question was me and we all knew it.  
Knowing the Uchiha brat wasn't going to save my hide, I tilted my head to the side and raised a single eyebrow at them like they were morons.  
'Where Sasuke goes, I go.' I psychically spoke in all of their heads.  
'Who does this bitch think she is?!' the red-head thought at the same time Jirobo mentally yelled, 'I'LL KILL HER! I'LL KILL HER! I'LL KILL HER!' over and over again like that was the only line of thought he could have going at once.  
Actually, I think that was the only line of thought he was capable at once...  
Anyway, they obviously needed some more convincing. So, not willing to show these bozos any mercy, I flashed through the hand signs for the 'Mind Body Disturbance Jutsu' and sent my chakra slamming into their bodies. All at once, four unique nervous systems appeared in my mind's eye and I gained full control of their hybrid bodies.  
I smiled sweetly and sing-songed, "Don't say I didn't warn you!"  
Then, without further ado, I imagined the four images in my head doing the Macarena Dance perfectly in-sync.  
All four (five?) members of the Sound began dancing away like there was no tomorrow while I clapped along to the beat in my head, mumbling gibberish in place of the real lyrics.  
Sasuke sighed audibly. 'Really, Ino?'  
I smiled at him cheekily.  
Finally, the insane quartet got to the last move and I sang, "Heeeey, Macacerna!" and forced them all to slap themselves across the face on the final beat. At their positively horrified expressions, I lost all composure and promptly broke down laughing.  
"You! Hahaha, you should have seen!!! Hah, YOUR FACES!!!"  
"That's enough, Ino," my boy said, sounding exasperated.  
"Fine, fine."  
Pulling the sign for release, the sound four collapsed like puppets without strings. "There. Happy now?" I said, boldly ignoring five gory images of my mangled corpse bombarding my brain.  
He nodded far too seriously then ordered the others to pick themselves up.  
"I take it there are no more complaints about me coming along?" I asked, acting like I hadn't just taken control of their bodies with ease and made them humiliate themselves.  
A vaguely murderous, "No." was spat out by S&U and the others nodded along in agreement. Inside their heads, they were all planning my death of course. But when had a good murder fantasy stopped me? Sasuke Uchiha had them aaaaaaaaaaall the time!  
I was very much desensitised by now.  
"Great!" I said, "Then what are we waiting for?"

\---

One day later, Sasuke and I stood in the middle of a clearing deep within Fire Country with the sound Four surrounding us on all sides. I'm sure it looked rather sinister to an outsider. But from my vantage point, "The Legendary Sound Four!" were too busy mentally complaining about how tired they felt to be anything but irritating at best, annoying at worst.  
"I'm afraid you'll have to die just this once," S&U said, sounding much more threatening inside his head.  
We were up to the part in the Sasuke Retrieval Arc where the four twits fed my boy a special pill and sealed him inside a magic box. The pill would technically kill him, true. But only temporarily and when Sasuke awakened, his curse mark would have evolved to stage two.  
A.k.a. The grey wing form.  
There was no need to make the kid hesitate when the aim of the game was to get him to agree to their dubious request. Right now, they were just hazing for hazing's sake!  
"I must die... once?!" Sasuke asked incredulously.  
"Only once?" I interrupted, scoffing, "Did you hear that, Sasuke? You only have to die once! This will be a breeze."  
Six heads stared at me in bafflement. My boy especially looked at me like I'd got a few screws loose. Either that or he was genuinely concerned for his wellbeing and couldn't figure out why I was acting like this was all a big joke or something.  
"What?" I asked Sasuke, "Itachi's killed you in Tsukuyomi hundreds of times. What is one more go around in the grand scheme of things?"  
'IS SHE SERIOUS?!' he mentally shouted  
Not one to be overshadowed, S&U chuckled sinisterly and redirected the attention back to himself. When he was convinced we were all giving him our undivided focus again, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle of dark red pills.  
"You will take one of these... 'awakening' pills," he ordered.  
We all caught the pause. But what the others didn't hear were the alternative names for the so-called “Awakening Pills” running through those two heads.  
They weren't pretty.  
Trying not to look nervous, Uchiha asked, "What's it for? Awakening for what?"  
Tayuya obligingly answered his question, explaining, "That mark on your shoulder is only a first stage curse mark. But those pills will stimulate and magnify its power, making it a level two."  
'Did master really not explain this to him?!' she thought.  
I found it disturbing to note she referred to Orochimaru as her master in the confines of here head, when on the outside she called him, "Lord Orochimaru," like the others.  
Was it a fetish of hers or did she really think of him as her master?  
Either way, it was kinda weird.  
"One problem," S&U spoke again, "Strengthening the curse mark will also increase the effects on your body. Such a rapid change would kill you at once."  
"That's inconvenient," I quipped.  
"And. So." Two heads stressed, 'Shut up! You pest!' "To ensure you survive the transition into the second state, we must give your body time to get accustomed-"  
"How long will that take?" I interrupted again.  
A round of irritated mental groans sounded in my ears. They were just too easy to rile up!  
"Several hours," Kidomaru answered, flexing his muscles in a show of dominance.  
Honestly, there was really no need to establish who was top dog around here. In a few hours, they would all be dead and my boy and I would be walking away looking peachy.  
Spider guy's posturing was just wasting everybody's time.  
Then again, maybe I should be letting him slow us down? The longer it took to reach Orochimaru’s Hideout, the higher the chance we would miss his cut-of date and he’d be forced to find another host.  
‘Hmmm,’ I thought, ‘That sounds like a lot of work on my part… So, nah.’  
"After that," S&U spat, "Once your transition is complete, your power may even be equal to ours... Unfortunately, the fact remains that even with all these preparations, you'll still have to die."  
He announced the word 'die' all super dramatic-like and I swear I heard super serious music ring through the clearing.  
"So, I'm dead," Sasuke said, sounding not-at-all bothered by that, "What'll happen after that?"  
"Oh please," I countered, "Isn't it obvious, Uchiha?"  
Knowing it really wasn't but not wanting two-heads to steal my thunder, I swept my arms wide and gestured at each sound member standing in the clearing.  
"They'll cast a barrier ninjutsu to lessen the effects, suspending you in a state of half-death. Its admittedly sketchy, but it is safe. Their minds told me so."  
Sasuke looked from the pills, too the Four Schmucks, and back to me.  
'I'll be half-dead?! Are you serious!!!' he thought, rightly pissed.  
"And I'm supposed to trust you guys to make sure this 'half death' doesn't end up being the real thing?!" He sneered angrily at the sound-nin.  
"Of course not!" I elbowed him in the ribs while telepathically ordering the others to, 'Shut. Up.'  
"You'll have me here to pull you back! And besides, these are Orochimaru's handpicked bodyguards. No one else has more experience dealing with curse marks, barrier ninjutsu and human experimentation than they do, Uchiha."  
Said experts all preened under my praise but didn't dare disobey my order and risk embarrassing themselves again. Meanwhile, Sasuke looked at the pill bottle again in deep thought.  
“Seriously? I'm supposed to trust Ino of all people?! They Want me to DIE! I'M GOING TO DIE!! I CAN'T DIE!!! I HAVE TO KILL ITACHI!!!”  
'Hey! Calm down,' I projected my thoughts into his brain and created a psychic loop. This way, we could have a whole back-and-forth conversation in my head and nobody would notice.  
'This is what you want, isn't it? To gain more power?'  
“Why are you taking their side?!” he asked.  
'I'm not.' I mentally scolded, 'I intend to watch your back and this is my way of doing so. Take it or leave it, Sasuke.'  
There was a moment of radio silence.  
“... You know I can't afford to die yet,” he said and sent me images of Itachi Uchiha's sharingan eyes.  
Mentally, I nodded.  
'Don't trust them, trust me. If the pill is about to kill you, I'll rebound the effects onto myself and you'll live.'  
I sensed a wave of shock run through the Uchiha before he quickly crushed it. The dude hadn't expected me to go so far for him. He'd probably been under the assumption I was only here to mock him when he failed. Or else to tease him into an early grave.  
Well, too bad for him that wasn't my intention.  
After all, I was a mind healer first and foremost and if my number one patient needed my help, DAMN IT, I would be there!  
I was gonna walk my boy through this hellish transition even if it was the last thing I did!!!  
(Hopefully my next life wouldn't be so messy)  
"I guess I'm in your hands," Sasuke finally decided.  
Snatching the pill bottle from S&U's hand, he popped open the lid and swallowed the pill dry. I gave him a mock salute then stepped back, allowing our escorts to do their thing.  
Almost immediately Sasuke grunted in pain and fell to his knees.  
"Right!" S&U yelled and whipped out a giant sealing scroll. "We've got to do this quick or we'll lose him!!"  
Like a well-oiled machine, Sakon summoned the iconic death barrel in a puff of smoke. While Jirobo rushed forward to put my boy's trembling body inside. Seeing this as my opportunity to hitch a free ride, I dived into the death barrel with Sasuke just as the Sakon yelled, "NOW!"  
It was a tight squeeze, I will admit.  
I had to wrap my legs around the squirt's torso and position his legs so they were doing the same to mine. With barely enough room to wiggle, I scooched forward, draped his arms around my neck and sneaked mine under his arms so I could hug my head to his torso.  
We were like two peas in a pod. All snuggled together like forbidden lovers, haha!  
Except he was shaking in immeasurable pain and I was struggling to block out the mental backlash of our psychic link.  
'IT HURTS! IT HURTS!! IT HUUUUURTS!!!!!' his mind screamed.  
'Shhh!' I soothed, 'You're okay, Sasuke. You can do this! You're gonna be okay.'  
Above our heads, a visibly black chakra was hovering over us like a tainted storm cloud.  
It was... kinda very impressive actually.  
Why couldn't all jutsu be this flashy?  
When the cloud looked sufficiently fat and Sasuke could take it no longer, the sound four chanted, "Four Black Mist Formation!" and the black mist zoomed inside the barrel.  
Immediately, I felt like I was suffocating and realised this my last chance to exit my body and jump into Sasuke's soon to be unconscious one. My body would be fine underneath the stasis seal as I left it empty all the time and it never rotted.  
Just another perk of being a Yamanaka, I guess!  
In the blink of an eye, my mind fell out of my head and landed in the middle of the Uchiha's mindscape. Unlike last time I'd visited, the ground was shaking and the black flames surrounding the abandoned district were roaring. They towered into the air, licking at the red clouds and filling the air with suffocating smoke.  
"What the?" I looked around frantically for Sasuke's mental image of himself. "SASUKE! SASUKE, WHERE ARE YOU?!" I yelled, willing my voice to echo like a megaphone.  
Nobody answered.  
Panicking, I forced myself to stumble through the Uchiha District on wobbly legs in search of my boy. I called his name over and over again but he was nowhere to be found. Eventually, my feet took me to the main house, where I discovered the foundations rumbling and the roof was about to cave in.  
"SAAAASUKEEEE!!!" I screamed and run into the house.  
In I frenzy, I searched every room, open and closed every door and checked inside every cupboard. All while crying his name and mentally willing the house to stay together just a little longer.  
FINALLY, I found him curled up in Itachi's bed, buried beneath the covers.  
Tearing into the room, I pulled back the sheets and was confronted with the sight of a four-year-old Sasuke, tears and snot streaming down his cute cheeks.  
"Oka-san?" he sniffed, confused and disorientated.  
Oh boy, this was bad!  
Uchiha's self-identity was regressing under the pressure of the curse mark's affects FAST!!! No matter what I willed into existence now, he would remain as a toddler until the pressure subsided. That left me with no choice... We were going deep diving!  
Kneeling down to his level, I held out my arms and attempted to smile reassuringly.  
"I'm not your mummy, Sasuke. I'm your Aunty Ino, remember? Itachi-kun asked me to come play with you while he's away."  
The little boy squinted at me as outside the fires roared and the neighbour’s houses collapsed.  
"Aunty... Ino?" He asked.  
I nodded vigorously and made grabby hands at him. "Come on," I said, "Let's go outside and play!"  
At his hesitant behaviour, I added, "We'll play Ninja~ AND you'll get to show me all the super cool jutsu you've learned!!"  
"Hmmmm, okay!" he cheered.  
Shuffling across the bed and into my waiting arms, I snatched him up and whizzed us down the hall, quicker than the Flash. The roof groaned ominously as I shot through the pallor and the wooden beams cracked and splintered.  
"Nearly there, nearly there!" I chanted, jumping off the wrap-around-deck and heading towards the koi pond.  
I'd learnt the pond represented Sasuke's subconscious. So, I knew it would be the only place NOT effected by the curse mark's destruction. The only problem with deep diving into this part of his mind was without an outside anchor, we could get stuck…  
Shikamaru usually acted as my anchor when I went deep diving in his head. But he wasn’t here right now, leaving me with only one option.  
We were going in blind!  
Nearing the edge of the pond, I yelled out, "HOLD YOUR BREATHE!" before throwing us in headfirst and narrowly missing the front doors as they were launched across the yard with the house's collapse.

\---

Floating in the pool of Sasuke's subconscious mind with a toddler Sasuke in my arms felt a bit like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole. Warped objects and strange hybrid animals flew past leisurely. While giant sized doors flapped open and closed in a non-existent breeze. I caught a few glimpses of what was behind some of the doors, but was hard pressed to interpret what I'd seen...  
There was a scene of two boys, one brown haired and the other black haired, skipping stones across a stream. I saw a bare bones dojo with the symbols of a sun and moon hanging on a white banner at the back. Followed by a giant purple Sussano raging through a bloody battlefield and the eyeless corpse of a black-haired teen being lowered into the ground.  
It didn't make a lot of sense really.  
There were what looked like snippets of Indra Otsutsuki and Madara Uchiha's life intermingled with memories of an even younger Sasuke being taught how to throw shuriken by Itachi and Shisui.  
But that couldn't be right???  
I mean, I knew that Sasuke was the reincarnation of the two men. But to have their memories lying buried deep within his subconscious felt too out of place…  
"Doggy!" the Uchiha in my arms squealed as a corgi floated by.  
"Yes, it is a doggy," I mused, eyeing Indra's pet dog suspiciously.  
"Come here puppy!" the boy cutsie talked to the corgi, making grabby hands at it gleefully. The dog just barked at his reincarnated master before trotting off through a random door.  
Huh... Weird.  
"Naaaw, the doggy left," Chibi-Sasuke pouted.  
I felt the insane urge to coddle the young boy. Then caught myself in the act and had to do a double take. When exactly had I become the type of person to coddle children?  
Ino Yamanaka was a tad unhinged, sure. But I had never stooped to that level before.  
What had changed between then and now???  
As we continued to slowly float our way down the endless pit; I occasionally had to manoeuvre us out of the way of a straw lightning arrow or fire ball. It seemed that the further down we went, the more random over-powered jutsu would rush between doors or obliterate any object unlucky enough to get in their way.  
‘Just where were all these jutsu coming from anyway?’ I wondered.  
"I'm tiiiiiired," Little Sasuke whined.  
Switching him to the other hip, I began bouncing him up and down and wondered how Itachi ever did it. Chibi-Sasuke was SO annoying and SO heavy and SO getting on my last nerve!!!  
If his ex-brother were here, I wouldn’t have heisted fobbing him off into his arms and never coming back.  
Toddlers just weren't my thing.  
After what felt like a LIFETIME of falling at a snail's pace, we finally left the wonderland pit behind and emerged into a wide-open cavern. It seemed to stretch on for miles in every direction, leaving only the dark blue floor and endless night sky above to define the parameters. As said floor got closer, I thought I spied millions of ants running about. Then realised they were actually hundreds and hundreds of people milling about like lost NPCs!?  
When we landed gracefully, I took a moment to observe the various people around us and quickly deduced they were Indra, Madara and Sasuke in different stages of development.  
There were the waddling two-year-olds, the laughing three-year-olds, the screaming and crying five-year-olds, the happy-go-lucky kids, angsty and cocky tweens and handsome middle-aged men.  
I even spotted a few wrinkly and grey-haired Indras and Madaras!!!  
The weirdest part of all was that each one seemed to be reliving a scene from their life on repeat. Except no one but them could tell what was happening. So, they just looked like incredibly talented mimes…  
There was a baby Sasuke sucking his thumb in an invisible cradle, a kid Indra throwing invisible kunai, a grandpa Madara sitting on an invisible chair and I kid you not, a teenage Indra taking a dump over an invisible long-drop toilet!?  
"Uuuuuuh," I glanced from the Sasuke in my arms to the endless number of avatars around us and thought, 'What the hell is this!?'  
I knew the subconscious mind was a wild thing but this was taking it to a whole new level...  
Did all reincarnated soul’s subconscious look like this? Did mine look like this!??  
The real question to ask was how the infinite number of avatars managed to swerve out of each other’s way when they clearly couldn’t see or sense one another???  
“Your mind is weird Sasuke,” I mumbled to myself, “Really, REALLY weird.”  
"Are we gonna play now?" the boy in my arms asked.  
I grimaced.  
We had just passed a litany of strange and whacky things and playing ninja was all Sasuke's mental image could think about!?  
Seriously, this was getting absurd even for me.  
"No," I sighed and clutched him tighter when he started to wriggle. "Stop it!" I growled, "It's too dangerous to play right now, okay?"  
He 'hmph'ed in a way that was eerily reminiscent of his older self. "I wanna play with 'Tachi!" He said, wriggling harder. A bolt of panic shot through my heart and I squeezed the babe in my arms much harder than necessary!  
“Owie!” he cried.  
I didn’t let go.  
If I let go of the representation of Sasuke's conscious self now, I might lose him in the crowd of replicas and never find him again.  
Rule number one of deep diving: NEVER lose the upper mind's avatar!!!  
Once that thing got lost or left behind somewhere, the brain would remain comatose no matter what outside interferences were used.  
That COULD. NOT. HAPPEN. While on my watch. I wouldn’t let it!!!  
“BOOM!”  
The ground jolted.  
“What the-”  
“BOOM!”  
The ground jolted again.  
Spinning around, I searched between the oblivious Indras, Madaras and Sasukes, looking for the source of the shaking.  
“BOOM! BOOM!”  
“Aunty Ino?” Chibi-Sasuke asked, cowering into my shoulder, “I want ‘Tachi.”  
I levelled the squirt with a look that had him hiding his face in my blouse.  
“BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOOOOM!!!!”  
On the last jolt, the blue stone floor cracked open and a giant ravine opened up beneath our feet. I had to jump into the air and mentally manifest rocket boosters on my feet so my body could float in mid-air.  
“Weeee!” The turd squealed while I stared down in dawning horror as a FREAKIN’ LAVA MONSTER crawled its way out of the ravine!!!  
“Oh. My. God.” I swore, “There’s a BALROG inside his head!?!”  
Said Balrog slapped fiery hot hands on either side of the crack in the floor and lifted himself out in one smooth motion. It towered several stories above us and I suddenly understood how an ant must feel.  
Chibi-Sasuke took one look at the molten rock monster and screamed at the top of his little lungs. To my astonishment, as he screamed, his body began to rapidly grow until I was holding a thirteen-year-old Uchiha in my arms once again.  
Unfortunately, this meant his body was waaaaay to heavy to hold up anymore and he slipped through my grasp and feel.  
Now it was my turn to scream as Sasuke’s representation of his conscious mind dropped straight into the lava filled crack.  
“NOOO!” I cried, diving down after him as fast as I could.  
Frantically, I imagined either side of the ravine as my hands and slapped them together in the summoning hand sign. The crack in the floor slammed shut just in time to catch Sasuke falling like a brick. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had the foresight to soften the ground. So, when my poor boy landed, I heard bones break and watched as he coughed up blood.  
…Oops?  
“GAAAAAARRRRR!!!!” The Balrog roared and suddenly charged at Sasuke’s prone form.  
“Oh, HELL NO!” I shouted.  
Rocketing through the air at speeds that weren’t possible in the real world, I zipped above the heads of the STILL oblivious avatars, manifested a giant bazooka in my hands and fired it straight at its chest. The missile landed spot on and exploded in a great ball of flames that would make Deidara proud!!!  
“HA!” I cried, “Take that!”  
The Balrog, in a move I really should have seen coming, brushed of my attack like it was nothing and reached out with a giant hand towards Sasuke. It picked him up and held him in his fist, all while my boy screamed and thrashed in terror.  
“LET HIM GO!!!” Adding boosters to my rockets, I flew towards the monster’s fist and tired prying its fingers open.  
But it was no use.  
Deep in my heart, I knew the Balrog was a manifestation of the nature chakra present in the curse mark. Meaning that no matter what I willed into existence here, without the aid of a seal, the beast couldn’t be defeated by my will alone. Only Sasuke’s will could do that and it was currently too busy being brought towards the Balrog’s mouth.  
‘What do I do? What do I do!?’  
I raced through every lesson on nature chakra dad had ever taught me but came up short on how to handle its representation in the mind. The only thing known about its effects were that it had the tendency to eat away at a person’s psyche until there was nothing left but the urge to consume.  
Basically, if I didn’t get out right now, that balrog would eat me alive and my soul would never return to my body!  
I liked Sasuke. Really, I did!  
But dying for him wasn’t on the agenda today so it was time to cut my losses and VAMOOS!  
“Sorry Uchiha!” I shouted as the terrified avatar was shoved into the Balrog’s mouth and swallowed whole. “I’ll cya on the flip side!”

\---

Returning to my body in the nick of time, I opened my eyes to find myself lying flat on my back in the middle of a grassy field. Dew was soaking into my clothes; the wind was whipping my hair and the sun’s rays were boring into my skin.  
‘Huh’, I thought, ‘I’m alive.’  
That meant Sasuke and I had been freed from the death barrel and he’d survived the assimilation of nature chakra into his system.  
Honestly, that was a huge achievement. He deserved a well earned pat on the back for that feat alone!  
I know I couldn’t have done it… (That Balrog was much to scary for me to tame)  
Sitting up, I took a quick survey of my surroundings and had to do a double take.  
There, in the flesh, stood The Kimmimaru, the last member of the Kaguya Clan!  
And there, across from him, stood a drunk Rock Lee, stumbling around like an idiot.  
The duo was currently in the middle of a heated Taijutsu battle, about five metres to my left. From the looks of things, it seemed I’d woken up somewhere between Sasuke awakening and running off but before Garaa arrived and killed Kimmimaru. This was a good, as all I had to do was slip away and wait for my boy to finish hashing it out with Uzumaki in the Valley of the End.  
I wasn’t too sure where that was exactly. But who needed maps when Sasuke’s mind was flaring like a beacon!  
His thoughts were so loud and nasty, I’m sure even the plant life knew it.  
Suddenly, my ears heard a thump and I turned to see Lee laying spread eagled in the grass.  
‘What just happened?’ Kimmimaru wondered, ‘Did he really fall asleep?’  
Ooooooh.  
We were up to that part, aye?  
Unlike most Naruto Fans, I hadn’t been a fan of this particular fight. I’d just found the whole thing silly and woefully inappropriate in tone. This was the part of the story were each member of the male cast got into a death-match with one of the Sound Five, for goodness sake!  
It wasn’t supposed to be comedic and funny. It was meant to have gravitas and a sense of danger befitting the threat of Kimmimaru!!!  
‘Hm… Should I intervene and save Kimmimaru the trouble? Or should I sit back and let the dude die?? Which one of those options would benefit Sasuke in the long run???’  
On the one hand, without my interference the Uchiha would make it to Orochimaru’s base by nightfall. But by then, all the Sound Five would be dead, Naruto would be left unconscious at the bottom of the Valley of the End, and Sasuke would be beaten-up and drained of almost all his chakra.  
Technically, the objective would be fulfilled… But that didn’t feel like much of a win to me.  
On the other hand, if I was to interfere by assisting Kimmimaru in his fight with Lee and Garaa, he could help me carry Sasuke to the base and there would be one survivor!  
One was better than none, right?  
Then again, with Kimmimaru around at the Sound hideout, my boy would have to constantly compete for the spot of ‘Best Boy’ in Orochimaru’s eyes.  
Soooo, to save him or not save him?  
I guess the real question here was, ‘Am I capable of saving him?’  
Currently, my chakra tank was dangerously empty. There was maybe juuuust enough chakra to squeeze out a good ole Mind Body Switch or sixty seconds of Spirit Transformation.  
Anything else apart from sensing or projecting my thoughts was out for the count until I ate a hearty meal and took a good long nap.  
That wasn’t a lot, admittedly.  
But my spirit Transformation was an instant kill move!  
All I needed was fifteen seconds to enter through my target’s soul gate and shut it on my out and ‘BAM!’ They’d be dead.  
But did I want to do that to Rock Lee???  
He was a staple in the Narutoverse, true. But after his fight with Garaa in the Chunin exam Arc, he didn’t really contribute much to the plot. Killing him now would be easy peasy.  
However.  
His death would have HUGE ramifications on the plotline and cause massive deviations to the original plotline. So then, what I really needed to ask myself was, ‘Did I risk killing him off now and lose my advantage of knowing the future? Or did I not mess with the plot, keep my future knowledge intact and loose Kimmimaru?’  
Wait. A. Minute.  
Why was I making a false dilemma for myself?  
There was always the much easier solution of knocking Lee out and leaving Kimmimaru prepared for his death match with Garaa!  
That option meant I spared Rock Lee from injuring himself further, sparing his life AND I wouldn’t have t put any effort into helping Kimmi-kun with his match. The dude would likely still die but… it was for the best.  
His sacrifice would help Sasuke and that’s all that really mattered to me.  
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to at least level the playing field, right?  
‘It will make for a more epic battle anyway,’ I reasoned.  
So, without further ado, I ran through the hand signs for a classic Mind Body Switch and threw my spirit into the fitness freak’s drunken head.  
Knocking him out was as simple as planting the suggestion to ‘SLEEP’ at the front of his head and exiting. The instant I returned to my own body, Lee was out like a light properly this time and my chakra was almost gone.  
‘Alright, time to ally myself with the Kaguya Clan survivor!’ I decided.  
Clearing my throat, I called out across the clearing, “HE IS UNCONSCIOUS!”  
Kimmimaru paused in his approach and snapped his head around to stare at me.  
Any lesser man would have withered under his glare, but I had my big girl pants on and no amount of killing intent was going to slow me down.  
“He’s a master of the Drunken Fist though. So, don’t approach him without your kekkei genkai activated.”  
‘Ino Yamanaka… How is she alive? She was dead a moment ago!?” he wondered. Then out of nowhere, his thoughts rapidly changed character and they screamed, “KILL HER! I MUST KILL HER!!! DIE! DIE! DIE!’  
That was all the warning I got before he shunshined across the field and aimed his bone sword straight between my eyes. Miraculously, I managed to roll my protesting body to the side just as his sword sunk three inches into the ground, skimming my ear!  
“STOP!” I cried, “I’m on your side! I’m on your side!!”  
Kimmimaru’s eyes travelled from my fear-stricken face to the Konoha Hitate still wrapped around my waist. Internally, I grimaced at my own stupidity. It was a habit of mine to use the forehead protector to finish of my outfit.  
But I was a rogue-nin now.  
The smart thing to have done would have been to leave it home, sitting on my desk next to the letter to my dad. Except, in my hurry to get dressed last night, I’d put it on without realising and now here I was, reaping the consequences…  
“You are a Leaf ninja,” Kimmimaru declared accusingly.  
Acting confused, I looked down at the hitate aswell. “Huh, would you look at that,” I reached into the kunai pouch at my side and carefully pulled out a kunai. When Kimmimaru didn’t move to stab me through the chest, I brought it down to the metal and drew a clean-cut line straight through the Leaf Symbol.  
“There!” I said, pocketing the kunai, “Now I’m officially a rogue ninja.”  
‘She’s bluffing. She has to be bluffing! But… she desecrated her Hitate… No Leaf shinobi would do so unless they were serious.’  
I stayed completely still while Kimmi-kun made up his mind. All while keeping track of the One-Tailed Jinchuriki’s steady approach. He was about ninety seconds away when the teen before me made up his mind to accept my actions and withdrew his sword.  
“Right, I’m a Yamanaka Sensor,” I said, not bothering to get up yet, “Garaa of the Sand is going to appear at your 9 O’clock in thirty seconds. He is the One-Tail’s container, he has a kekkei genkai that allows him to manipulate sand and the gourd on his back is infused with his dead-mother’s protective spirit. It acts on its own to shield him from all physical attacks and its only weakness is fast-paced lightning ninjutsu.”  
I rolled onto my back and give him a cheeky thumbs-up, “Good Luck!”  
And with that pronouncement, Garaa teleported into the clearing at the same time I pulled the Tiger hand seal and zipped away to freedom.

\---

By the time I reached the Valley of the end, Sasuke and Naruto were wrapping up their fight. At seeing Naruto wrapped up in his one-tail Kyuubi Cloak and Sasuke with his grey wings spread out behind him, I began to wonder if I had a gift at showing up at the end of important events?  
My track record certainly seemed to add up.  
“Sasuke… you’re a monster…” Naruto was saying.  
His head was reeling at seeing my boy fully transformed. In return, the Uchiha stifled a cry of pain through clenched teeth. The curse mark was eating away at his body and chakra like a virus. He only had two minutes left before his body was overwhelmed and he passed out. Likewise, Naruto had about the same time limit before Kurama took control and the boy was forced to go on a rampage.  
Sasuke, like the genius he was, knew this also.  
I watched hidden behind the statue of Hashirama Senju’s shoulder as Uchiha forced himself to stand and yell out at his best friend/trusted comrade over the roar of the waterfall.  
“That power of yours,” Sasuke shouted, “By using it, you’re taking a risk, aren’t you?”  
The confident smirk on his lips turned the question into a statement.  
I was kinda annoyed that he’d stolen my trick!  
“Look around!” he continued, “Do you know where we are?”  
The obvious answer was that, no. Naruto didn’t know. Because he was a dumb idiot with an undiagnosed learning disability and ADHD. So, like a gentlemen, Sasuke elaborated, “It’s called, ‘The Final Valley’.”  
“The Valley of the End, I hissed.  
Seriously, why did everybody insist on NOT using its correct title? ‘The Final Valley’ was nowhere near as cool as ‘The Valley of the End’ in my opinion.  
“The perfect setting for this fight, isn’t it, Naruto.” Sasuke gloated.  
As the nine-tails jinchuriki currently had two giant incisors preventing him from speaking clearly at the moment, my boy took the opportunity to sneer cruelly at his ex-friend.  
“Well?... Oh right, of course. I said there would be no more talking, didn’t I.”  
I huffed at his antics.  
‘Just hit him with your Chidori already!’ I mentally whined to myself, ‘We’ve still got Leaf Ninja on our tail, you dingus!’  
Oblivious to my ranting as he always was, Sasuke smirked, “In that case, I guess we’re at the end... The end of this fight and all the fights up to now!”  
Leaning back on my heels, I had to squint inorder to see my Uchiha run through the signs for the Chidori at the same time Naruto’s cloak bubbled and popped. He formed a Rasengan in his right palm easily and grinned viciously at his soon to be ex-comrade.  
Hatred and killing intent filled the air.  
I shielded my eyes as the two leapt into the air, each screaming out, “CHIDORI!”, “RASENGAN!” respectively.  
The resulting clash of the two S-Rank Jutsu was very impressive.  
The closest thing I could compare it with was the Public Fireworks Display I’d witnessed in Dresden on New Year’s Eve that one time. Except instead of being made of gunpowder and dangerous chemicals, the resulting shockwave was powered by potent purple chakra.  
It was truly a marvellous sight to behold!!!  
Sadly, the light show was over and done with in about two seconds flat, revealing an unconscious Naruto Uzumaki on the shores at the bottom of the valley and Sasuke Uchiha standing victorious.  
‘Huh. That ended quickly.’  
In my head, that final blow had been accompanied with the soundtrack of ‘Sadness & Sorrow’, plus multiple flashbacks of the good old days and happy times. But in real life, there was no sappy music or bittersweet scenes lasting several minutes.  
The fight was just… over.  
“Welp, that’s that I guess.” Rising to my feet, I took my time running down the length of the Hashirama statue. Meanwhile, my boy clutched at his arm dramatically, dropped to his knees and coughed up blood. I reached his side just as he was taking a moment to stare intensely at Naruto’s closed eyes. His mind was reeling from the shock and disappointment of winning the match.  
I actually got the feeling that he hadn’t wanted to win. Well, not in the way he had at least.  
“Sasuke… its time to go,” I said delicately, laying a hand on his good shoulder.  
It took him a few seconds, but eventually he ‘hn’ed at me and rose to his feet. I watched as he went to take a step forward and almost face-planted into the river. Barely catching him through my own sluggish reflexes, I shifted his bad arm so it was over my shoulder and took most of his weight in my right side.  
No words were spoken as I teleported us to the other side of the valley. Together, we disappeared through the rain and foliage, ten minutes before Kakashi and Pakku burst through the treeline.

\---

Kabuto and Orochimaru did us the honour of ambushing us in the middle of Sound Country. Sasuke had passed-out in my arms about two miles back and we’d been resting in a remote clearing for twenty minutes when they made their dramatic entrance.  
If I hadn’t sensed two minds in-coming, I might’ve been startled.  
Too bad for them, my sensory ability and complete lack of self-preservation gifted me with the amazing talent of not giving a damn. They stood across the little clearing for ages, hurling enough killing-intent to knock-out a small herd on ninja in a failed attempt to get me to cower in fear.  
Instead, I waved at them innocently.  
“Hi-Hi!” I sing-songed, “Sorry about the delay, Sasuke is heavier than he looks.”  
‘Ino Yamanaka… how… interesting.’ The Snake Saninn’s thoughts were just as intimidating and vaguely sexual as they had been during the Chunin Exams.  
Meanwhile, Kabuto’s inner voice was suspiciously absent…?  
‘Is he blocking me out somehow? Is that even possible?!’  
There was a moment of tense silence where the medic-nin engaged me in the second most intense Mexican Stand-Off of my life. Until he finally blinked after one hundred and twenty seconds and I won.  
Ino-1  
Kabuto-0  
I figured we were going to have an epic rivalry of the ages.  
It was at that point, Orochimaru got sick of waiting for me to stand up and bow or something overly formal like that and approached. I sensed Sasuke’s mind spike in alarm as the man steadily grew closer. His pulse began to race beneath my fingertips and his brows furrowed in alarm. He wasn’t lucid by any means. But my boy’s instincts were finely tuned to threats against his life and could spot them coming from a mile away.  
Clearly, his subconscious mind had categorised Ororchimaru as a threat and was desperately trying to wake him up now that he was in his vicinity.  
“Shhh,” I cooed, delicately brushing his bangs out of his face.  
Psychically, I projected the tune of ‘Everything Stay’s straight into his brain and willed ideas of ‘SAFE’, ‘FRIEND’ and, ‘CALM’ to take root in his psyche.  
By the time Orochimaru was looming over us like a snake ready to strike, his heart rate had returned to normal and his muscles had relaxed.  
“He transitioned his curse mark into stage two,” I explained quietly, “Unfortunately, he engaged the Jinchuriki in battle and pushed himself too far too soon.”  
I lifted my head to stare into the Snake Sannin’s yellow slitted eyes, concern clear in my eyes for all to see and judge. “He passed out three hours ago.”  
Orochimaru squatted down over Sasuke’s torso, still manging to tower over my short form and stared closely at my boy’s face. I went to open my mouth to tell him to, ‘BACK OFF!’ then thought better of it and kept it shut. Instead, I clutched tightly to Sasuke’s shoulders as the S-Rank criminal ran his long pale fingers over my boy’s cheek, traced the curve of his jaw and brushed reverently at the dried blood peeping out from the corner of his lips.  
The whole thing was very stalkerish and if he was anybody else, I would’ve killed him in an instant, no questions asked!  
‘You’re lucky he needs your training, Orochi,’ I internally scowled.  
Suddenly, the snake man rose to his feet and snapped, “Kabuto! Heal our honoured guest.”  
The grey-haired teen shuffled over obediently, but it was clear as day he wasn’t happy about it.  
‘Oh? Jealous are we, Kabuto?’  
Kneeling at my side, he rudely nudged my shoulder and I scowled at him menacingly. “Touch me again and I’ll shut your Soul Gate before you can blink,” I hissed.  
His grey eyebrows shot up at my threat but he didn’t reply. The Medic chose to ignore me in favour of focusing chakra to his hands, making them glow green with healing chakra.  
While he did his thing, I redirected my gaze up to the Leader of Sound.  
Somewhere between standing up and my threat, he had relocated himself to a nearby and leant against it. His arms rested limply at his sides and I remembered that he was most likely still recovering from his recent body-switch and loss of… the soul in his arms? The chakra in his arms? Whatever Hiruzen had done to his arms.  
“Sorry for your loss by the way,” I said, not at all sounding sincere, “Jirobo had his heart crushed by Choji Akamichi, Kidomaru was killed by Neji Hyuga’s Gentle Fist, Tayuya was sliced to pieces by Temari, Sakon and Ukon were stabbed to death by Kankuro’s puppet coffin thing and Kimmimaru succumbed to his illness fighting Garaa.”  
“Pity,” he said.  
I nodded, “I would’ve helped them. But I figured if they couldn’t handle a couple of Leaf shinobi then they deserved what they got.”  
‘’Tachi… No, I don’t… W, where? Where am I? What happened!?’  
Looking down, I smiled as Sasuke’s eyes flittered open. He blinked a couple times in sleepy confusion before focusing on my smug grin.  
‘Ino Yamanaka… is alive!?!’ his mind practically hissed.  
He proceeded to fantasize various ways of killing me, multiple of which involved sneaking up on me in my sleep and incinerating my body with a giant fire ball. There were a few that involved poisoning my food or drink. But mainly he focused on how satisfying it would be to see my bleeding corpse littered with kunai and shuriken.  
I scored him a 4/10 for lack of creativity.  
“Morning sleepy head!” I cheered brightly, pinching his cheeks how he hated it.  
A hand wielding a kunai swiftly rose towards my jugular and I had to leap away before it struck. In doing, my boy’s head ‘THUNK’ed onto the dirt, causing a hiss of pain to escape between his clenched teeth.  
“Haha! Missed me again, Uchiha~” I snipped giddily.  
‘DIE! YOU CRAZY BITCH!!!’  
In response to his thoughts, I gasped dramatically and clutched at my heart, feigning hurt.  
“Sasuke-kun! Get your head out of the gutter!” Grinning evilly, I skipped over to lean over his prone form while Kabuto continued to heal the damaged nerves in his shoulder. “If you wanted to touch you should have just asked, sweetheart,” I winked.  
The intensity of the killing intent he directed at me was spine tingling!  
Whatever he had been dreaming about, combined with the ghost of his curse seal’s nature chakra had darkened his chakra several notches.  
Before it had been like runny petrol; now it was like thick tar.  
He was well on his way to falling prey to the Curse of Hatred, by my estimates.  
Uchiha moved to hurl another kunai in my direction when Kabuto’s hand shot out and stopped him. “Hold still, I am trying to heal you,” he ordered, not sounding to happy about that fact.  
‘Yep, definitely jealous,’ I concluded.  
While the healing session continued, I sidled up to Orochimaru and smiled sweetly.  
“Hi! We haven’t officially met, but I’m Ino!” I curtsied cutely for him before bouncing on the balls of my feet in unrestrained excitement. “It is SO good to finally meet you in person. Your bodyguards Would. Not. Stop. thinking about how powerful and scary you were! It was very inspiring.”  
I nodded sagely at that last comment. Which probably caused me to come across a tad unhinged now that I think about it…  
BUT WHO CARES!  
I was Face to Face with THE Orochimaru-sama!!!  
Adopting the insane was his mojo; we wouldn’t I take advantage of that?!  
“Yamanaka-san,” the man crooned, not even looking at me, “What a pleasant surprise. I did not expect you to be joining us in the Sound.”  
“It’s just Ino and yeeeaaah, that wasn’t the plan, I’m gonna be honest,” I explained, “But when Uchiha was all like, ‘I must obtain power!’ I figured it was best I came along to keep an eye on him. I’m his personal mind-healer, you see? He’s still recovering from Itachi’s Tsukuyomi; so, I figured it was best to just save myself the effort and stay nearby.”  
“Oh?” he replied, raising an eyebrow (Though STILL not looking in my direction)  
I over exaggerated my nod because I felt emphasized my point.  
“Ah huh! It’s a good thing I did too. The Sound Five all died before we left Fire Country and his mind started regressing during the curse mark’s transition. If I hadn’t been there to help, my poor boy wouldn’t have made it across the border in one piece!!!”  
“I see,” was all the infamous scientist said.  
Choosing not to take offence at that, I folded my arms and turned around to join him in his blatant staring. Kabuto’s hands were hovering over Sasuke’s left shoulder now, obviously having located the dislocation.  
“I didn’t think you’d mind if I tagged along,” I said, shrugging in nonchalance. “I know your M.O. is all about experimenting and researching kekkei genkai and forbidden techniques, so I’m willing to trade you for letting me continue with Sasuke’s treatment.”  
This time, Kabuto full-on sneered.  
I was super annoyed that I couldn’t hear his thoughts! He had to be laughing at me, I was sure of it!!!  
“I’m afraid I’ve already studied the Yamanaka and their Hidden Jutsu,” Orochimaru suddenly answered.  
‘Time to share my secret then!’  
Turning to face the Sannin head-on, I waggled my finger playfully at him.  
“Ah, ah, ah! I’m a Yamanaka and Kato Hybrid. The only one in existence, in fact. I’ve been combing the two techniques for YEARS now. I’m like a Mindscape Guru!!”  
With my claim to be a unique once in a lifetime specimen, Orochimaru and Kabuto BOTH looked up from Sasuke to stare at me in surprise.  
It was hard to not puff up my chest and preen under the attention. I was a sucker for compliments after all. But I kept my head firmly on my shoulders and bared their attention with a clueless façade.  
“A Spirit Transformation user…” the snake sibilantly said, “Hmmm, there hasn’t been one of those since the Second Ninja War.” He FINALLY turned to face me then and I nearly squealed in victory!!! “And a Yamanaka too… you claim to be Sasuke-kun’s mind healer?”  
I nodded an affirmative.  
“Well then… tell me, what is his mind like?”  
Now that was a loaded question if I ever heard one.  
How was I meant to broach a subject as deep and complex as that one?!  
The mind was a crazy place. It couldn’t be summed up in a few words and a fancy metaphor. To try would be to not give credit where credit was due!!  
Sadly, I had to try, for Sasuke’s sake as well as mine…  
“Um, it’s kinda hard to explain… his mind is… Well, its damaged, okay? Since I met him, his mind has broken a total of three times and I was the only one who noticed.”  
“Three times?!” Kabuto asked, voice filled with disbelief.  
‘They really don’t know much about the mind, do they?’  
Considering the life my boy had lived through, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyhonme that his mind would have taken a few beatings. Really, it was a miracle the kid could even form a coherent thought after the beating it sustained from Itachi’s Tsukuyomi, TWICE! If the kid hadn’t been blessed with a resilience that lasted three lifetimes, he would have been left brain-dead years ago…  
“Three times,” I confirmed gravelly, “I’ve pieced his mind back together so many times by now, sometimes I feel more comfortable in his mindscape than I do my own.”  
‘How could you Ino! Stop exposing my weaknesses!!!!’ Sasuke’s mind hissed in dismay.  
I ignored him; it was for his own good anyway.  
“Interesting,” Was the only reply Orochi made before pushing of the tree and ordering Kabuto to help Sasuke up so they could get moving.  
My boy slapped his offered hand away grouchily and rose to his feet under his own power.  
“Come,” The snake ordered.  
Collectively, we all trailed behind Orochimaru as he directed us through the forest and towards his secret base. The actual entrance looked just as it had been depicted in the anime, except with the smell of rot and decay added on.  
It was appropriately intimidating.  
I occupied myself with flitting between every cell and reading the minds each of their inhabitants. All the cells with open bars were about the size of a racquet ball court and were stuffed to the brim with people in raggedy grey hospital clothes. They reminded me a bit of a can of sardines. Except instead of being filled with marinated fish, they were filled with dirty, miserable human beings.  
The mix of fear and hatred filled thoughts that assaulted me as Orochimaru and Kabuto passed were palpable. I think I could literally taste it on my tongue!  
“Why are they all just sitting in cages doing nothing?” I asked, interrupting the silence.  
Thoughts of surprise and words along the lines of, ‘Does she have a death wish?!’ flooded my head.  
It was very distracting.  
“They are my test subjects and failed experiments, Ino-chan,” Orochi crooned indulgently.  
‘That didnt answer my question at all!’  
“But why are you keeping them? Wouldn’t it be better to wipe their memories and send them out to repopulate the country???”  
Kabuto looked at me like I’d lost my marbles while Sasuke remained as impassive and stoic as his ex-brother. Though he hadn’t mastered Itachi’s apathetic air quite yet.  
Orochimaru meanwhile, had turned his head over his shoulder with an inquisitive expression on his face.  
‘Repopulate? What an… interesting perspective. How… novel.’  
“How would I go about doing so?” he asked, feeling genuinely intrigued if not a tad annoyed he hadn’t thought of it earlier.  
I could relate.  
“Well, you’re using the towns as a smokescreen for this place, right? So why not make them actual towns rather than fake ones. From what I heard; you own the Daimyo. It would be easy to brainwash your leftovers to rebuild the towns, set up new trading routes and fortify the country. That way, anyone nosy enough to come snooping around would find perfectly functional towns and loyal citizens at every turn!”  
I finished off my speech with a sly smile, “I bet it would save you from wasting resources on containment prisons.”  
‘Ah, I see… she wishes to forge a role for herself to avoid becoming a test subject,’ he observed, ‘Clever.’  
I was just an open book around him, wasn’t I?  
Yes, I didn’t want to be thrown in a prison cell and be experimented on ruthlessly. That would be boring and I didn’t really have the patience for it. But I didn’t particularly want to be in charge of rebuilding a war-torn country either…  
‘Ugh, me and my big mouth! This is sooo annoying.’  
We rounded a corner and entered a large open hall filled with rows and rows of stone columns and flickering fire lights. It didn’t seem to hold much purpose other than looking large and foreboding. I wondered idly what Orochi used it for. Perhaps it was a conference hall? A meeting place for his followers maybe?  
Eventually, we were led to hallway filled with doors that opened up into rooms with ensuites. I sensed that the majority of them were empty, but the won at four at the end of the row were occupied by four sleeping signatures.  
“This is your room, Sasuke-kun,” Orochi said, “I hope it is to your liking.”  
I doubted the bare bones room would be up to anyone’s liking. But compared to the unclean and crowded cell blocks, it was paradise!  
My boy ‘hn’ed ambiguously, neither confirming nor denying any kind of opinion.  
“Kabuto make sure our guest is cleaned and feed,” the snake hissed sibilantly, managing to add ‘S’ sounds to words where there were none.  
“Of course, Lord Orochimaru,” the teen bowed.  
The Sannin turned to me then and eye-smiled, “Let’s have a chat, shall we Ino-chan?”  
“Of course!” I replied.  
I waved playful goodbye to the Uchiha before skipping after the man and into a, I kid you not! Genuine throne room. Orochimaru proceeded to seat himself on the snake adorned throne and stare down at me in quiet contemplation.  
Of course, it wasn’t quiet for me, as I could hear his mind race through plans and ideas regarding experimentation and training for myself and Sasuke. Honestly, I was a little flattered he was including me in Uchiha’s training sessions. I wasn’t a combat type, so I wasn’t really sure what I would be contributing. But he seemed determined to have me there supervising and such.  
‘Oh! He wasn’t me to monitor his mental state!’ I realised.  
Now I felt like kicking myself for not thinking that sooner!!  
“Ino-chan,” the man said.  
“Hm? Oh yes, Lord Orochimaru?”  
‘Scatter-brained, sensor type, lack of self-preservation and disregard for authority figures… Is her behaviour a product of the Spirit Transformation? Or a result of her up-bringing…?’  
Well that was rude.  
I didn’t lack respect for authority, specifically…  
It’s just that when you know the future outcomes of most of their decisions, it was hard to bother caring listening to them with both ears. Most governing figures in this world were idiots, so I endeavoured to ignore them and save myself the trouble.  
“Why did you forsake the Hidden Leaf, child?” he asked, “Why do you wish to join me?”  
“Because Danzo’s a prick and your way of life seemed more exciting,” I answered.  
His lips quirked upwards, “Is that so.”  
I shrugged, “What else do you want me to say, my lord? I’m the most powerful mind-sensor in my clan since the founding. Danzo has been biding his time to snatch me up and three days ago he got his perfect opportunity. Why wouldn’t I piggyback off Sasuke’s defection?”  
“Ahhh,” he smiled cruelly from beneath his bandages, “You seek asylum.”  
“Pretty much.”  
I wasn’t actually seeking asylum. I wasn’t in danger of being snatched up by the old geezer. My position as the Yamanaka Clan Heir protected me from threats like that. But I suspected Orochi already knew this and was simply humouring me.  
For whatever reason, he didn’t really care why I’d left. Only that I had and I was here now.  
‘How pragmatic of him.’  
In a move that was most un-snake-like, Orochi suddenly clapped his hands and together and smiled wildly, “Excellent. Welcome to Sound, Ino-chan. I am placing all administrative duties in your capable hands.”  
His eyes narrowed at me, a clear challenge in his gaze.  
I puffed up my chest and smiled broadly at him, as if to say, “You’re on!”

\---

Life at the Sound Hideout was very exciting.  
If you considered organising files and counting particularly riveting, that is.  
I’d been granted access to basically anything and everything on the condition all my reports went straight to my new boss and ONLY him. Loose lips sank ships around here, so I forgave his paranoia wholeheartedly.  
To my utmost surprise, I was given my own office to work out of, with a desk, filing cabinets and everything! There was even a comfy chair, working lights and office supplies to help increase my productivity.  
I was given the room opposite Sasuke’s just because and a brand new hitate. This one had a single treble cleft carved into the metal, indicating it belonged to the Village hidden in the Sound. Well, in giant underground caverns beneath the sound to be more accurate.  
But who cares?  
Not me, no.  
Details were for losers!  
My first order of business had been to go in search of prisoner’s files. I’d naively assumed Orochimaru had a numbering system for his captives but was quickly proven wrong. It turns out that the Snake Sannin just sent out a group of his most loyal and able-bodied followers to kidnap anyone they came into contact with to be unwilling participants in his diabolical experiments.  
Only to house them in a cell with NO RHYME OR REASON!!!  
Say what you won’t about Orochi’s skills, but organisation was NOT one of them…  
I decided to ignore counting how many residents were currently in the base at the moment and moved on to counting stuff instead.  
But again, I hit a snag.  
First of all, this particular hideout had no map. Or if there was one, it wasn’t written down anywhere.  
Secondly, the base’s communal facilities were in bad shape and looked as if they had never been used before.  
Thirdly, all provisions like food, water, clothing and other bits and bobs were sourced directly from the locals. Meaning, every nearby clan was forced to pay a tithe in the form of produce and stuff inorder to not be afflicted by the Saninn’s wrath.  
It was an inefficient system and not a particularly reliable one either.  
Basically, the entire thing needed to be overhauled, ASAP!  
So, with that momentous task before me, I went in search of Orochi to ask for a team of lackeys. His answer to my request was an absent handwave and the order to, quote, “Pick anyone.”  
Well, who was I to refuse that kind of offer?  
Thus, I marched my way straight to the sardine cells in search of lackeys.  
‘Alright, listen up!’ I telepathically broadcast to all, ‘I am in need of anyone with experience in construction, cleaning, cartography and accounting. Volunteers will be given their very own cells!’  
There were many volunteer’s and I was forced to scan each and every one of their minds to validate their claims. But by my fourth day in the Sound, I had eight prisoners at my beck and call.  
Aqua, Purple, Orange, and White were four middle-aged woman with the hair colour befitting my names for them and had experience as maids.  
I happily scrounged up some clean supplies and set them to work cleaning the entire base!  
Aqua, being the brave soul she was, had asked, “Where should we start?”  
That was a good question. Where should they start?  
“How about you two start with the four communal bathrooms,” I pointed at Purple and White, then switched to Orange and Aqua, “And you two start with the Laundry.”  
Next, I ordered Four Eyes (A young boy wearing glasses) to use his earth sensory ability to make a map and settled him on the floor of my office with construction paper, pencils, rulers, and a protractor.  
Tweddle Dee and Tweddle Dumb were teenage brothers with tattoos on their faces and burly muscles on their arms. They had a neat kekkei genkai that basically granted them photographic memory and they BOTH had experience working in the trading industry.  
I handed them both a clipboard, blank notebooks and pens and gave them the task of auditing the entire hideout’s stock.  
That left me with the ninety-three-year-old woman named Miko from Kiri.  
The old girl was clearly on her last legs but she been the head matron of an orphanage since she was seventeen and thus, was excellent at all thing’s paperwork!  
I deemed her my assistant and we were away laughing.  
Two weeks later, my team and I were ready to begin the arduous process of numbering prisoners, getting them showered, washing their uniforms, and cleaning/revamping their community cell.  
The entire set up worked like this: I would imprint the compulsion to ‘OBEY’ and ‘STAY CALM-DON’T RUN’ into all the occupants of a cell, I would order them to exit their cell, one by one. When they were all lined up in the hallway, Tweddle Dee and Tweddle Dumb escorted them to the bathrooms, where they were ordered to strip, dump their raggedy uniforms in the clothing bins at the door, given a black towel and sent into the showers.  
I’d managed to pilfer a Soap/Shampoo/Conditioner/Moisturizer bodywash from a run-down salon five miles away. I had my cleaning girls fill up the empty soap dispensers in the shower stalls with it.  
I’d done some research on the Salon and found they made the bodywash themselves. So, taking advantage of that, I petitioned them to make as many different scents as possible and become the Hideout’s EXCLUSIVE supplier if they managed more than five. The family had come up with the following scents: Vanilla, Coconut, Cinnamon, Pepper Mint, Spear Mint, Honey, Lavender, Roses, Daises, Jasmine, Pomegranate, Grapefruit, Banana, Orange, Apple, Strawberry, Peach, Pineapple, Watermelon, Passionfruit, Sage, Milk, Ginger, and Odourless.  
As the product was guaranteed to kill 99.9% of bacteria, I bought it ALL!!!  
My girls got to work filling up the empty soap dispensers in each shower stall and varied which scent went where at random.  
I figured that the sheer variety of smells would give back each prisoner a small sense of control and identity in their mundane lives. My aim here was to see if the choice improved their mental state, or at the very least combated the uniformity mentality that was driving them all slowly insane.  
While that was happening, Aqua, Orange and, White would clean the vacant cell from top to bottom. As Miko installed a softening seal to the concrete floor to make it more comfortable to sleep on and one to regulate room temperature. They were two pretty mundane seals she’d used at the orphanages whenever they had run out of beds for the war orphans.  
She had gladly acquiesced to using it here inorder to improve the tenant’s conditions.  
“I had such a sore back sleeping in there!” she had complained, “It was so cold!”  
As that was going down, Purple rushed all the showering prisoner’s uniforms through the laundry. Actual washing powered had been nowhere to be found inside the Hideout’s many, many, storage closets.  
Thus, I did the same thing I did with the bodywash and outsourced it to one of the locals. I found a long-abandoned washing house in Fuma Alley and petitioned the old couple who owned the place with the same deal I did the Salon. Two days before the first scheduled wash run, the couple produced the following scents: Frangipani, Blossoms, Lavander, Jasmine, Rosewood, Grass, and Odourless.  
To be honest, I wasn’t really sure why anyone would want their clothes to smell like grass, but who was I to judge?  
I left it to Purple’s discretion on which scent she used each wash. With only the instruction that no two smells repeated.  
Uniforms that had rips, stains or were falling apart at the seams were placed in the throw-away pile and replaced with brand new ones. Thankfully, I’d been informed the bases storage closet housed thousands of un-used uniforms, so we had plenty to spare.  
The machines in the laundry were surprisingly modern and had a unique dry setting that kinda baked the clothes so they were crisp and dry when they came out. If we had the time to iron them, I would have done so too.  
But there were hundreds of uniforms to clean and we were on a time limit!  
Once the cell was cleaned and revamped with the Softening Seal and the prisoners were all washed, Four Eye’s would retrieve the uniforms and handed them out as they exited one by one again in exchange for their towel.  
The final step in the process was going along the line of freshly cleaned people and tagging them with a modified monitoring seal I’d “borrowed” from Kabuto. The seal had been copied from Lightning Country’s Kumo Prison and appeared as a thin black band around the left wrist that circled around the kanji for ‘Prisoner’ on the inside wrist. They were designed to relay Age, Weight, Height, Blood Type, Heart Rate and, Identification number to a recording scroll. Said scroll was placed in my office, where I could easily keep track of their health stats.  
But of course, tagging all the prisoners with the exact same band would have been counter productive to my social experiment to lessen the effects of the Uniformity Mentality.  
So, I came up with the brilliant idea to modify each prisoner’s seal kanji seal with a unique symbol. Each corresponding group’s symbol would have a theme you see. The first group I went along the long and asked, “What is your favourite flower?”  
Their answer was indicative to which symbol I wove into their seal. With forty cells to go through, I named each of them according to the theme of the symbol. It didn’t matter if there were double ups, triple ups of even quadruple ups because the bands each had identification numbers already woven in.  
We had: Flowers, Plant, Tree, Food, Animals, Bugs, Birds, Fish, Instrument, Sports, Weapons, Colours, Country, Elements, Tailed Beast, Summons… etc. (I won’t name them all or we’ll be here all day)  
The march back to the cell was easy as pie and when each one stepped across the community cell’s threshold, Miko would record down their identification number and listed which cell group they were in.  
Altogether, we found that the average number of tenants in a single cell was thirty. E.g. about the size of a classroom full of children. Once everybody had been returned to their cell, I released the compulsion and gave my team a pat on the back for a job well done.  
The whole process took one hour and thirty minutes in total. But would be shortened by half ana hour thanks to the removal of the sealing part.  
After the first day, we were operating like a well-oiled machine!  
With seven groups going through each day, ALL FORTY COMMUNITY CELLS were done and dusted within the week. By the time we got round to the single cells, I had the base working more like a humane prison rather than a Nazi concentration camp.  
“You have 1,200 prisoners in the community cells, 72 prisoners in the single cells and 18 prisoners in the Arena, Lord Orochimaru.”  
I bowed politely to the snake from the foot of his throne. I’d reached the end of my first month and was feeling pretty proud of myself. With Four Eyes map and Tweddle Dee and Tweddle Dumbs resource logs, I had the entire Hideout audited.  
“Good work, Ino-chan,” He crooned.  
‘Good work? My work was FANTASTIC, thank you very much!’  
That summed up our little get togethers perfectly, actually.  
I would approach him wherever he was (Mostly training Sasuke somewhere), regale him with my report and receive a single, “Good work, Ino-chan.” I knew for a fact he didn’t care about anything I said or did. These report sessions of ours were mainly a way for him assert his authority over me while also half-heartedly monitoring my nefarious deeds.  
Not that anything I did was nefarious, per say.  
Just highly disruptive to the resident’s daily lives. But it was for their own good, so who cared if they complained? They were lowly prisoners to my volunteer.  
One day, after I’d informed Orochi that I planned on overhauling his food menu next, he dropped a bombshell on my lap!  
“Ino-chan, prepare to leave the Hideout within the week. We are moving to the Grass Hideout and I expect you to accompany our dear Sasuke-kun.”  
“Of course, Lord Orochimaru,” I had replied while inwardly seething, “Will the prisoners be accomapning us?”  
He shook his head, “No. They are a liability and I have others.”  
Well, that wasn’t ominous at all.  
“Oh, okay,” I had said, “Um… what shall I do with them then?”  
The snake had hummed about it before coming to the decision to just dispose of them. The ‘dispose’ was code word for ‘Kill’ here. But I didn’t want to kill them and I told the man as such because I was bold and knew he found me amusing.  
“Do what you wish,” he had ordered.  
And so, that is how I found myself with the monumental task of wiping EVERY SINGLE PRISONER’S MIND!!!

\---

The moment I sensed a mind similar to Naruto Uzumaki’s enter the Hideout, I knew Karin had arrived. Abandoning Kabuto to his work, I raced out to the entrance and practically tackled the red head to the ground.  
“Karin!” I cried, squeezing the bejeezes out of the girl, “I am SO glad to finally meet you!!”  
‘WHAT THE HELL!? DON’T TOUCH ME, DON’T’ TOUCH ME!’ her mind screamed. All her thoughts were in Capitals, just like the other Uzumaki I knew.  
I reckoned it had to be a trait of their clan.  
Pulling away to give the tween some air, I grinned like a manic at her. “Sorry,” I apologised, “I didn’t know you had an aversion to touch. My bad.”  
“How… h, how do you know my name?” she asked timidly.  
‘Oh! She’s shy!’ I marvelled, ‘That is so cute!’  
Taking a step back so I was hovering just outside her personal bubble, I smiled gleefully at her. “I’m a mind-reader. It’s one of the perks of my clans super-secret forbidden jutsu.”  
‘LAIR! NOBODY CAN READ MINDS!!!’  
“I promise you can,” I replied, “Here! I’ll prove it right now.”  
“Wha-?” she spluttered. But it was too late  
Very dramatically, I pulled my hands into the tiger seal for show and listened carefully to her racing thoughts. Pictures of Sasuke tackling a bear in the Forest of Death flooded my head, followed by feelings of ‘AWE’, ‘GRATITUDE’ and ‘LOVE’. Clearly, she had used her Eye of Kaguya Technique and sensed Sasuke’s chakra deep within the base.  
The poor girl was already head over heels for my boy.  
I figured it was best to nip that in the bud before her feelings developed into full-on obsession like they had in Naruto Shippuden.  
“You just recognised the boy from the Chunin Exam’s chakra within the base and think he’s a right snack,” I said with absolutely no shame.  
“I… uh… how did you???” The poor girl blushed from head to toe, causing her skin to turn the same shade as her hair. She was very embarrassed, but I had lost my sense of decency years ago. So, I pressed on as if I couldn’t hear her brain desperately wishing to melt into the floor and disappear.  
“Sorry hun,” I said, “But Sasuke is both Asexual AND Aromantic.”  
‘WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?! WHAT IS SHE TALKING ABOUT!!!’  
Sighing, I placed a hand gently on her shoulder and gave her my best sympathetic look.  
“That means he doesn’t feel sexual or romantic attraction to anyone or anything. The best kind of relationship you could hope to have with him is one of mutual respect or begrudging tolerance.”  
Her disappointment was palpable.  
I actually felt a little guilty…  
It was at this point, Orochimaru cleared his throat and loudly thought about how rude I was being infront of his latest acquisition. I also took note of his genuine surprise at my boy’s lack of orientation… and was that a whiff of disappointment I smelled???  
EW!  
‘Bad, Orochimaru, bad!’  
It seemed everybody who laid eyes on the youngest Uchiha immediately wanted to tap that. Like, I got it, sure.  
Sasuke was an attractive young man destined to become an even handsomer adult. It was one of the infinite benefits of having pure Uchiha genetics. But seriously? Was nobody capable of simply appreciating his lovely aesthetic and moving on with their lives???  
WHY did my boy have to be such a CHICK MAGENT!  
Brushing of that line of thought, I turned to the Snake Sannin and bowed politely.  
“Lord Orochimaru,” I greeted.  
His mind preened under at the form of address but on the outside his face remained blank.  
“Ino-chan,” he crooned in that semi-sexual way of his, “This is Karin Uzumaki. Would you be so kind to help her settle in?”  
He didn’t gesture at the girl because there was no point. But I played along with his act regardless and bowed to her too.  
“Ino Yamanaka, at your service!”  
Karin’s nod back was miniscule.  
Not letting that hurt my feelings, I bowed to Orochi again confirming that, “Yes, of course! I’d love to give her the tour,” before grabbing her hand and dragging her down the hall.  
‘Report to Kabuto-kun when you’re done,’ he mentally ordered.  
‘Sure thing!’ I telepathically replied, then disappeared around the corner.


End file.
